


All You Sinners

by dawnstruck



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Doctor Who (2005), Merlin (TV), Sherlock (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, Crossover, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Superwholockin, Superwhomerlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-05
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-11-06 23:39:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 51,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/424484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnstruck/pseuds/dawnstruck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a story that the Winchester Gospel will one day tell, a story that begins in Camelot and that shall end on Christmas Eve.<br/>Sherlock searches for Excalibur in hopes of destroying Moriarty while Morgana summons something unholy, and in between it all stands the Doctor, trying to unite heroes and tragedies.<br/>But what kind of being has been granted entrance into this world - and who does it want as a vessel?</p><p>[ABANDONED]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The thing with being a Time Lord was that you never quite knew how far you were allowed to go.

The Doctor remembered many instances in which he had been forced to stand back and just let certain things happen, important things, breath-takingly terrible things. Some children had to be born, some wars had to be fought and all kings had to die one day. That was just the nature of things, and though many of those he had encountered during his years and days of traveling (or how else should someone like him measure their time?) seemed convinced that he was all-mighty or at least all-knowing, he was in fact just a minor being from a minor planet in a minor galaxy.

It was infuriating, of course, when he had to keep his mouth shut and simply watch instead of doing what he believed to be right, for the Doctor was a man of action and never much cared for pastimes like sitting back to enjoy the show.

He _was_ part of the show. Whenever he opened the door of the TARDIS and stepped out into a new world, a new time he inevitably made himself a part of that particular point of history, even if it only included holding open the door for an old lady in Toulouse on a mild spring morning in 1956.

The Doctor would always be a visitor, a guest, a wayfarer, a faint memory spread thin among the thoughts of those who had once come face to face with him. One of the very few things – maybe the only thing - all creatures in all universes had in common was forgetfulness. Not all of them admitted to it, some outright denied it, but the problem with such problems is that you often forget that you have forgotten - and once you have it can never be regained.

But the Doctor was content. Content with what little leeway he had to work his tiny wonders, even if it meant winning and losing friends and fighting lost battles of which he had already read in history books and on Wikipedia. Because even if he could not mess with Fate and fixed points in time, he could show up in the right moments and make sure that whatever had to happen actually did happen.  He knew by now that - to a certain extent - Time could be re-written. But first you had to write something down at all.

And after snapping shut his _2254 Edition of the Reloaded King James Bible_ the Doctor had a fair idea about how to choose his future (or rather past) destinations and pick up some new companions.

Life with a TARDIS was, after all, always History in the making.

**~o0o~**


	2. The Empty Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Great. He blinked. So he had finally snapped. Because there was no other explanation for the blue police box that was suddenly standing in the middle of the previously empty living room of 221B. Next thing Mycroft would go flying around with his umbrella and start singing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”.

**Chapter 1 – The Empty Room**

_“Loneliness is your only friend.  
A broken heart that just won't mend  
is the price you pay.”_

_Empty Rooms by Gary Moore_

 

**London, England, 29 th January 2013**

 

The room was empty.

In many ways it had been empty for a long, long time, devoid of warmth and life and happiness, but now all the material things were missing, too. No stuffed bookshelves lining the walls, no half empty tea cups standing around, no chemical substances merrily burbling on the kitchen table.

There was only John now, John, the old sofa and the heavy cardboard box he was holding in his arms.

It was the last box of many that were filled with a seemingly never-ending amount of random trinkets and treasures that John never quite knew the use and meaning of.

He’d packed it all away, all on his own, even when so many people offered their various ideas of support, but he’d known that this was something he had to do on his own. So he had spent half a week sealing away his life with duct tape, wrapping African vases and cheerful memories in layer upon layer of faded newspaper.

Till the very end people had tried to keep him from making this decision and actually going through with it. Mrs. Hudson, of course, didn’t want him to move out, offered to lower the rent even further, which was ridiculous and they both knew it. Greg seemed to be torn between approval that John tried to get on with his life and worry that without this last constant John would finally lose it. Harry berated him, simply for the sake of berating him, but even she seemed to realize what a big step this was for him. Strangely enough Molly Hooper had practically begged him to stay where he was; and Mycroft had sighed in resignation and offered to hire some movers if there was really no way of convincing him to remain at 221B.

His therapist was naturally the only one who thought it was the first step in the right direction, but it wasn’t as if John gave a rat’s ass about her opinion. He wasn’t doing this to please or placate anyone. He did this because he had being living alone in this flat for the past nineteen months. And that was a longer time than what he had actually gotten the chance to share with Sherlock.

Sherlock. John sighed. He wondered whether this feeling would ever cease to nag at his intestines, this feeling that he had missed out on something, that there had been a future ahead but it had been brutally ripped from his hands because gravity and some other unfair shit decided that his best friend had to die.

John had lost friends in the war, in one way or the other. He had lost friends _because_ of the war, because once he came back some people at home could understand why he had changed but they couldn’t deal with it.

Losing Sherlock, however… that was something entirely different. All of John’s fallen comrades had at least gotten medals and other decorations to declare their courage and loyalty. It wasn’t much, but it spoke of respect and gratitude and honor. Sherlock never got any of that. Sherlock silently died in a miniature war and no one gave a crap. The Yard back-stabbed him, the papers discredited him and the people on the streets ridiculed their former hero.

It was a long fall from grace and an even longer one from the rooftop of Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital. The crash, though, was always hard and deadly.

John sighed again. And here he was once more, almost forty years of age and reminiscing on the good old times like a man standing in front of the sharp shards of his broken marriage, regretting that back then he didn’t simply elope with his childhood crush. But this was different. John couldn’t just write his name on a paper to sign up for his divorce, hoping to find a new love in the next bar. John still felt like only half a person and he really didn’t want to burden any woman with that. His past girlfriends had barely endured him with Sherlock by his side, but without him he was probably truly unbearable.

Mrs. Hudson always chided him that with that sour kicked-dog sort of look no one would ever assume what a sweet chap he was, but to be honest John didn’t feel like a particularly sweet chap either way.

He wasn’t as much of an actor as Sherlock had been, and even then Sherlock had only ever acted to get what he wanted. Most of the time Sherlock had either carried his true emotions on his face like a warrior king showed off the crest on his shield or hid them all away behind a veil of indifference. He had rarely bothered to put on a fake smile just to please people. Oh, every now and again, for Mrs. Hudson, sure, but that was mostly so she would stop buggering him.

John had been doing the same now. Smile, so friends will leave you alone. Scowl, so strangers will do the same. Drift through the streets like an empty candy wrapper, let yourself be swept away by the crowd. Ignore the pretty redhead with the French Bulldog. The dog isn’t house-trained and the hair color is fake, even if she has a sinful mouth and a smile directed at you.

Mike, who’s been happily married for fifteen years, told him that he looked like a still mourning widower, like one of these men who talk to their dead wives as if she was very much alive, who visit the grave yard twice a day and sit at home staring at blank walls for the rest of the time.

Mike probably felt guilty because he was the one who introduced John and Sherlock, but John doesn’t blame him. If he hadn’t limped past that bench on that special day exactly three years ago he might’ve put a bullet through his head the very next morning. Mike wasn’t to blame. But what Mike didn’t know was that John didn’t just seem like one of those widowers. John _did_ talk to Sherlock when the room was empty, John _did_ go to the grave yard each morning and each evening, John _did_ stare at the atrocious wallpaper as if it were a mirror that had captured the best moments of his life and was replaying them again and again.

John wondered whether Mrs. Hudson would renovate the flat. She probably would have to. The scratches and burn marks on the floor weren’t so bad, but the wallpaper was beyond hope. Yellow paint and bullet holes and tiny marks from fixing pins that had been mercilessly rammed into the wall. These walls told a story and no one but John would ever be able to truly read it.

Clutching the cardboard box in his hands, John walked across the room, his steps echoing faintly. He had never quite realized how big the living room actually was. When he had first moved in, everything had been cluttered with all of the things that the detective found worthwhile, encyclopedias and Korean deli menus, throwing knives and silver spoons, a battered copy of the Winchester manuscript of Malory’s _Le Morte d’Arthur_ with Mycroft’s stilted hand writing on the first page (an inked “For Sherlock, November 1984” hinting that it had been a birthday present), a German spiked helmet and a bright yellow sari which John would have loved to see on Sherlock. And now, nineteen months after Sherlock’s death he had put it all away.

Mycroft had said he would take care of it, that John could keep whatever he liked, no matter how valuable or important it seemed, that he would store the rest somewhere safe and that nothing would be thrown away. John wasn’t quite sure what that promise was worth because Mycroft was a politician and thus a notorious liar, but he had seemed earnest enough and was always very intent on fulfilling John’s wishes as if that would make up for everything that had happened.

With a slight groan and a curse at his aching back and knees John sat down the box on the floor next to the sofa. The box contained the most important of his meager possessions. It hadn’t taken long to pack up all that was in his room, but these things were what he would never be able to let go.

His medals and his dog tags, of course, the Swiss army knife he got from his grandpa when he was eight and the silver harmonica when his grandpa was dead. A casket filled with all of his milk teeth, save for his left incisor which he lost in a fist fight with Joey Warren. The bullet he successfully removed from the arm of his first patient in Kandahar and the jar with the cow fetus he stole during his first month in med school.

Then there are the things that remind him of his time with Sherlock. The bullet casing from when he shot the killer cabbie exactly 1094 and a half days ago. A package of sugar from The Cross Keys, just because Sherlock was wrong. Sherlock’s favourite scarf. Sherlock’s pet skull. Sherlock’s index. Sherlock’s compositions. Sherlock’s sock.

The sock is probably a bit creepy, but John couldn’t bring himself to throw it away. He had found it two months after the funeral, just when he had thought that the pain had dulled a bit and was no longer digging into his insides every time he took a deep breath. The sock had been lying underneath the sofa, between dust bunnies and post-it notes; it was a left sock, it was anthracite-colored and it had a hole in it.

So when he found it John had sat on the floor and laughed and cried because he remembered how Sherlock had crouched on the sofa and contemplated his long, white pinky toe that stuck through the hole, mournful like a little kid whose teddy had lost an eye. Back then John had smiled teasingly and promised that he would darn the sock so Sherlock wouldn’t have to cry. Sherlock had sent him a pointed glare and told him that he was not going to get sentimental over a sock and somehow that conversation turned into a small skirmish in which John tugged the sock off of Sherlock’s foot and then they spent the evening with John online searching for lists of impossible foreign words and technical terms and Sherlock giving accurate definitions.

The sock must’ve ended up on the floor and then under the sofa and it must’ve lain there for at least four months and it was unwashed and it should’ve been gross, but John wrapped it in a handkerchief and tugged it away. He’d never sewn the hole shut, but then again there was no one who fixed the much bigger hole in his life, so maybe that was a fitting metaphor. John was a worn, old sock that someone had forgotten in a dusty corner and he had no idea where his counterpart had disappeared to. Probably got lost in the wash. John was all that was left.

Those where the things that John had thought worth of keeping. Other things he had no idea what to do with, other than to trust Mycroft with their safe-keeping. The violin for one, the complete Samurai armor, the shitload of books, the variety of weapons, the chemical equipment, the necklace that John was sure was made of honest to God diamonds.

There were strange things, too, like the two big bags of salt Sherlock had kept hidden in his wardrobe, the leather-bound tomes whose yellowed pages described ancient lore and occult rituals, stuff that someone like Sherlock hadn’t seemed to give a damn about. But that was Sherlock, strange and crazy and wonderful, and he had been much too special to allow John to return to his boring old life.

Blowing out the breath through his clenched teeth, John stepped closer to the wall, placing his palm flat against it, the surface slightly rough but familiar underneath his skin. Slowly he trailed his hand along the wallpaper and then pressed his finger into one of the bullet holes.

 _Bored! Bored! Bored!_ Sherlock’s aggravated outcries had reverberated through the flat as he pulled the trigger, and now at least John could relate. But Sherlock had simply been bored before Moriarty showed up, and he had been dead afterwards. John had definitely preferred bored Sherlock over dead Sherlock.

And just how bored Sherlock must’ve been at times. The yellow smiley was only one prove of his ennui. When John had taken down all the picture frames and posters he had found himself staring at strange symbols, only one of which he recognized as a pentagram, the meaning of the others completely lost to him. Unlike the smiley, though, which was slapdash at best, these symbols had been drawn with great care and attention, and John wondered just when Sherlock had done this and especially why. It didn’t really seem like the usual mischief of a child that was trying to pass some time. It seemed like Sherlock had known exactly what he was doing.

John had shrugged it off, though. Maybe it had been for a smaller case, one that Sherlock hadn’t deemed worthy of bragging about in John’s presence. Or he hadn’t wanted him to find out about the newest violation of their wallpaper. Well, at least he had been considerate enough to hide them behind the picture frames.

And now it was all over. Mrs. Hudson would call in some craftsmen to repair all the damage, Mycroft would cover the bills and John would move into his new faceless, one-room flat that was both too cramped and too expensive and he’d build something similar to a life there. The wallpaper would be torn down or covered up and some stranger would invade the beauty that was 221B Baker Street. But the moment John stepped out of the door, it would forever be this empty, haunted room.

He would do it now. He’d already procrastinated enough as it was. He could have been out of here two hours ago, four days ago. Heck, he could have been out one and a half years ago and nothing would have changed. Sherlock would stay dead and he wouldn’t get any deader just because John moved out.

There was a lump in his throat and John feebly tried to swallow it, but it was stuck. He would not cry, he knew that. He had shed a couple of tears, first when Sherlock fell and then a few hours after the funeral, but he had never managed to simply weep his grief away. There was always that lump, that knot, that weight and it was threatening to suffocate him, to stifle and crush. Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d leave the lump behind in this room. It was unlikely, but possible.

John shuffled back over to the sofa. The sofa was the only thing that would stay here. Mrs. Hudson would probably see to it and it would end up on some rubbish tip. Tenderly John ran his fingertips across the worn fabric. It must’ve been with Sherlock for a long time. There were cigarette burn marks and poorly mended rips and cuts, a stain from red wine and one from red blood, it smelled slightly mouldy and smoky and no amount of Febreze would ever cover that up. It smelled and felt like home. No wonder Sherlock had loved it so much.

Slowly John sank down onto the cushions, the familiar feeling of a broken spring digging into his left buttock. This was the place that had been assigned to John.  Either the trusted old armchair or this most uncomfortable spot on the sofa. Sometimes he’d sat there and next to him the detective had curled up like a cat, ignoring the rest of the world, the TV murmuring in the background, until suddenly Sherlock’d have jerked awake from his trance, unfurled his body and stretched out his legs across John’s lap as if he had had every right to do so. And maybe he had. Maybe John was only allowed to cramp himself in that tiny space, but at least he was allowed to sit on that sofa at all and so close on top of that, maybe the sofa was a metaphor for Sherlock’s life and John’s unprecedented role in it and maybe John really did have some serious codependency issues like his therapist always claimed.

Now, though , John would leave the sofa and 221B behind and he would be on his own again, just like when he had returned from war, only that this was worse because he was crippled in a way that no crutch in the world would ever be able to bear his weight.

Dear God. He was getting melodramatic again. Other people lost loved ones, too. Other people got on with their lives. Sherlock would have mocked him for his stagnation. Sherlock loathed stagnation. John loathed himself.

And so he simply let himself fall to the side, tugging his knees up to his chest, arms curled around them, and he rolled over, turning his back to the world and to the empty room that was his life, burying his face in the corner where armrest and backrest met and he pretended that he was Sherlock and that he could solve all of his problems if he only closed his eyes and really thought for once.

It didn’t quite work. The strange scent and the lack of oxygen only made him feel a bit woozy and very melancholic, and rather than turning into a Sherlock clone he felt like a sick dog that had curled up somewhere to die. Not exactly what he had tried to achieve with all this reminiscing.

Something strange, though, roused him from his reverie. Above the usual noise of high-pitched sirens and traffic chaos and life-without-him that streamed from the streets, there was a peculiar sound like a mixture of some old-fashioned video game machine in an arcade and wind and air and night sky, though John wasn’t quite sure how that could describe something audible.

Confused, he blinked himself awake. Whatever it was, it had sounded too close to be coming from outside. The hairs on his forearms rose, because of the sudden draft or static or… nervousness, he couldn’t tell. But he did recognize this feeling that made his insides clench pleasantly. He felt like he had when pressing against a brick wall, Sherlock literally breathing down his neck before he cocked his gun and fired a well-aimed shot, before they flung themselves around and fled into the dark.

Anticipation. John was waiting for something to happen, was _hoping_ for something to happen. And God, had he missed that feeling.

Slowly, very slowly, he pushed himself up on the sofa and turned around, his feet softly hitting the floor.

Great. He blinked. So he had finally snapped. Because there was no other explanation for the blue police box that was suddenly standing in the middle of the previously empty living room of 221B. Next thing Mycroft would go flying around with his umbrella and start singing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”.

John blinked hard and stared even harder, but the police box would not budge. It seemed almost real. Then again, that was probably the thing with hallucinations.

So. John contemplated whether he should just grab his box and get the hell out of here, hoping that his head would clear once he stepped outside. But somehow… he was curious. He was most likely batshit crazy, but the excitement that was suddenly bubbling up inside of him was more than whatever he had felt during the past year. And dammit, it felt great.

So John did the only reasonable thing that came to his mind. Reasonable, of course, by Sherlock’s insane standard. He leaned forward, reached out and opened the cardboard box that was still standing by his feet. Then he grabbed the gun that was lying inside on top of Sherlock’s neatly folded scarf. It was his service weapon which had been confiscated when the police had searched their flat and which – quite illegally - Greg had given back to him last November, with an encouraging smile and well-meant ‘Chin up!’ Back then it had made John feel miserable all over again, but now he was incredibly grateful.

With skilled movements he checked the ammunition and unlocked the safety.

The game is on, Sherlock had declared loudly, ten minutes after John had first stepped across the threshold of 221B. Yes. The game was on and John was so ready to play.

**~o0o~**

**Next Stop: Cornwall, England**

**~o0o~**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title inspired by “The Empty House” in which Holmes returns to Watson after the three year long hiatus; and “Empty Rooms” by Gary Moore, even though it is a love song, because I think it captures the feeling of loneliness and defiance. I set up the timeline according to “The personal blog of Dr. John Watson” which states that John and Sherlock first met on the 29th of January (2010, imo, because that was the year it was aired) and that Sherlock fell 18 months later, either on or shortly before the 16th of June 2011. And yes, this will all be of importance later on. My brain went nuts coming up with all of this additional shit, but it was worth it because it all fits so well.


	3. The Adventure of the Lost Soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What? I might be about to engage in a fight of life and death, so make it quick.”
> 
> “Don’t be so dramatic,” Mycroft chided mildly, “I am sure you are grossly exaggerating.”
> 
> “I found the sword,” Sherlock only answered curtly, “So I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

 

********

_“Yes, it's true you are a believer  
But you've been fooled by the lame deceiver  
Fan into the flame, the fire that can never die  
Take hold of the Sword, the Word of life  
The armor of God to prepare you for the fight”_

_Lost Soldier by Recon_

**Cornwall, England, 5 th July 2012**

He had found it. After all the searching, the running, the despairing, he had finally found it.

Eagerly Sherlock reached into his pocket and pulled out the silver knife he always carried with himself. It wasn’t exactly meant for this kind of work, so he would have to clean and sharpen it later on. He loathed the tedious business of weapon maintenance, but it was something he always forced himself to do. He couldn’t afford otherwise. He’d already risked his life more than once because he had grown careless. It would not happen again.

With a contemplative frown Sherlock lifted his gaze skywards. The moon and the stars were icily glowing constants amidst the velvet patches of deep black, quickly moving clouds of stormy blue a stark contrast against them, rapidly shifting yet looming dangerously like a bad omen.

A wry grin touched Sherlock’s lips as he stared up at the strangely beautiful sight. It was ridiculous. Full moon, omens, prophecies – not a long time ago he would have dismissed all notions of the occult as childish fantasies. He wouldn’t have deleted the knowledge, of course, because there were a surprising number of serial killers who felt the need to leave such marks behind, signs painted in blood, the victim’s teeth arranged in a particular pattern.

Sherlock had never gotten the chance to work on such a case himself, though he had always wanted to, if only to study the murderer’s mind and motives. Now he wondered how many of those peculiar, bloody crimes he had once read about were not simply the work of a madman but of someone who knew exactly what they were doing. And how many innocent people had been found guilty because all evidence seemed to spell it out, like smudged red letters on the wall reading, _You’ll regret it if you leave me!_

Sherlock shook himself from the memories of the crime scene photos he had once studied. The distressed woman had been sentenced to twelve years for the particularly brutal murder of her poor husband who had threatened to leave her. Back then Sherlock had already felt that there was something unusual going on, but he had been seventeen and arrogant and no one had listened to him.

Now, however, now he knew the truth about a lot of those grey-tinged white lies and he was much better prepared. But he didn’t have much time left. In approximately fifty minutes the small clearing in the valley would be completely illuminated by the moonlight. Sherlock would have to hurry in order to get the work done in that time.

Gripping the knife tighter in his gloved hand, he got down to his knees and began cutting away the small roots and stubborn twines, brushing away fallen leaves, dirt, bugs and one offended hazel dormouse.

He still couldn’t quite believe that after six months of searching he had finally found this damned place. Well. Maybe _found_ wasn’t exactly the word to choose, after all he had been told the location - after torturing that blasted, sharp-tongued demon back in Tredannick Wollas.

It was a pity, really. Sherlock had wanted to consult with Dr. Leon Sterndale, a famous hunter and explorer, who had a vast knowledge on African lore, something Sherlock knew next to nothing about, but who was also very familiar with Cornwall since he had grown up here and was thus the perfect aid. It had been an unfortunate coincidence that the detective had arrived just when some vengeful demons had taken possession of Sterndale, and his cousin Mortimer Tregennis, using their bodies to kill Brenda, Mortimer’s younger sister, and rendering their two other bothers temporally insane.

It had all been a dreadful business. In the following skirmish Sherlock had been forced to kill not only the demon but Mortimer himself, but he managed to capture and question the Sterndale’s demon.

Sherlock was certain that the two remaining Tregennis brothers would be suspected as their siblings’ murderers, especially since the poor sods claimed that what had happened was the work of the devil. Sherlock, however couldn’t just reveal himself and go consulting detective on the righteously baffled investigators, but in a rare bout of compassion he might’ve faked some evidence that Mortimer committed suicide after poisoning his own sister with radix pedis diaboli. Devil’s foot root. It seemed appropriate, even if it forever tainted Mortimer’s renown; at least his brothers were kept out of jail.

Sterndale, though, seemed a broken man. Apparently he had been in love with Brenda and the fact that the demon had enacted their revenge on him by killing her while possessing his body had destroyed something in him. Sherlock had met many hunters who were all driven by revenge of their own, but Sterndale had not been one of them. Now he would undoubtedly join their ranks.

But after the torture and the exorcism the man had still been alive, so Sherlock counted this as a lucky day; especially since the rather feeble-witted demon spat out some information to appease Sherlock.

By now it had become second nature to him. Question every single demon you come across on the slim chance that they might know something useful. Sherlock certainly hadn’t expected that this of all demons would know something on the matter. But here he was and the creature had been right.

„O sink hernieder, Nacht der Liebe,“ he murmured as he worked in the half-dark, „Gib Vergessen, dass ich lebe; nimm mich auf in deinen Schoß, löse von der Welt mich los!“

Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Act II. Mycroft loved Wagner, of course, always had, because it was dramatic, if slightly tacky. But it had genius, Sherlock could admit that.

He could still remember being nine and annoyed when Mummy dragged him along because it was Mycroft’s sixteenth birthday and he wanted to see Tristan and Isolde at the opera. Against his will, though, Sherlock had been fascinated by the compositions, although he suspected that Mycroft only liked Wagner because it made him feel almighty. Sherlock’s resulting interest in the Arthurian Legend, however, now came in handy.

Despite the relative cold he could feel sweat forming on his forehead, running down his temples, while he crouched on the ground, only moving forward every few minutes, slowly circling the slab of stone in the middle of the clearing. It was tedious work, but gratifying, and the weight on his shoulders grew lighter as he uncovered the old symbols one by one. Some he recognized as runes, others as sigils, and some others he had never seen before, but they were all fascinating, all hundreds of years old, beautifully carved into the cold stone, finer and more intricate than any human hand ever could.

Mummy had always thought that he would become an archeologist one day because he loved research and digging around in stuff and spinning stories about whatever he had just come across. That was after his pirate obsession but before he had found out that he preferred to work on things that had only died recently. Dinosaurs and pyramids were one thing, but decaying corpses and finding culprits an entirely different kind of art. Though he was pretty sure that with some motivation he would eventually have found the real reason why dinosaurs were extinct.

Half an hour later Sherlock had finished with the circles on the ground and moved on to the slab itself. His knees ached, as did his back, but he only clenched his teeth and continued. In a way it was easier to free the stone table from the plants because he only had to cut through some thicker roots and branches to have huge pieces loosen. The tendrils had artfully twined themselves around the projecting middle, a complicated pattern that was impossible to have grown naturally. 

Not for the first time he wondered whether this was actually a trap. The demon had given away the location too easily and it was strange that Sherlock had suddenly found it at all, despite the fact that he had been searching this area for a month now. He was sure that nine days ago he had hiked past here and yet he could not recall there being a valley or a slab or anything worth his attention. So this place had been protected, probably by some powerful charm, or someone else would have found it a long time ago. But this charm must’ve recently been lifted or Sherlock wouldn’t be here right now.

The only logical explanation was that someone had wanted him to find it. And so they had granted him access. It had to a trap. Someone must’ve tracked him down. But why hadn’t they attacked him? Out here he was practically defenseless, despite his weapons and talismans. Maybe they couldn’t enter the clearing themselves? Maybe they couldn’t touch it? Maybe they needed him to pull it out?

Did that mean that Sherlock would be able to pull it out? But that seemed too much to hope for. And yet…

Rejuvenated by these thoughts Sherlock worked even faster. The surface of the table was covered in symbols as well, but this time he didn’t bother with trying to make sense of them.

“ _And there shall be revelation_ ,” he told himself, his knife cutting through the twined, the words flowing from his tongue like the prayer he had turned it into over the past few months, “ _For he who hath moonshine and heart_.”

The old psychic in Glasgow had spoken spoken the truth after all.

 _“And stars will guide him to the blade he will find_ ,” he added, “ _And when he holds it there will be fire_.”

He had used the stars to navigate the exact location and he had found the clearing. He had moonshine and he had heart, namely his determination. And although he was a little bit worried about the fire part, the revelation thing sounded very promising. Especially in context with the blade.

There. Sherlock stepped back to contemplate his work. The sword in the stone was itself made of stone. But that would change soon. He lifted his head and stared up at the dark sky. The moon was hidden by a particularly big cloud. But then it drifted past and there was light again.

Within seconds the whole clearing was illuminated by the suddenly glowing symbols, cold and white like snow in a winter’s night, reflecting the moon’s milky pale glow. And the sword made of stone turned into one of steel and gold, and Sherlock’s eyes greedily raked along the equally glowing inscription along the side of the blade that was facing him. _Take me up._

So Sherlock did. He didn’t even think about it, just followed some deep instinct, stepped forward and closed his right hand around the leather-wrapped hilt.

It was warm. He could feel it even through his thick gloves, thrumming against the skin of his palm. For a moment he was surprised, but then he ignored it in favor or tensing his muscles and pulling the sword upwards.

Heat. A sudden burst of heat, against his palm, against the soles of his feet, behind his eyes, within the pit of his stomach, in his very soul he felt it burn and chaff and the sensation stunned him so completely that for a moment all he could do was to stay completely still. But the hilt grew hotter and hotter under his grip until he believed that he could smell his own flesh burning off his bones, and then some neurons in his head finally made the connection and he jumped back and let go.

With a hiss and hunched shoulders Sherlock furiously peeled the glove off – and blinked when he found himself staring at unblemished, white skin. There was no heat, no pain, no stench of branded cattle. Sherlock took a deep, calming breath. Against his will he found an amused smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

So that was the fire the Scottish psychic had mentioned. Interesting. He should have expected it, though. It really would have been too easy to pull Excalibur free just like that. Mycroft might’ve been the British Government, but Sherlock sure as hell was not the King of England. And he felt no particular need to change that.

So what now? All parts of the foretelling had come true, save for the actual revelation he had been hoping for. Except maybe if you counted the revelation that touching Excalibur hurt like a bitch if you were not the rightful heir.

Somewhere, not too far off, a twig snapped and Sherlock froze. It was nothing, really, just some regular noise in a forest in the middle of the night. But he had trained his senses to pick out the subtle differences, the static in the air, the shifting of the wind. And in this moment he could tell that there was a powerful supernatural presence watching him.

Damn it. So it _was_ a trap. Slowly he let his right hand slide into the inside pocket of his coat, the other reaching for the knife he had left lying on the slab. His gun would not help him much against whatever he was about to face, but it might still buy him some precious seconds to think of a better plan.

In that moment, though, Sherlock’s phone vibrated. The familiar sound and feeling, however, was so unexpected in this context that he nearly jumped out of his skin. He cursed under his breath, wondering who the hell would call him at four in the morning. There were few people who had his number and fewer still that he was truly interested in right now, but all of them would not call him without an important reason.

Sherlock wondered whether it was more sensible to still reach for his gun and ignore the stubborn vibration in his chest pocket, but in the end curiosity won out. He grabbed his phone and glanced at the screen.

Mycroft. Hm. Sherlock would probably never shake the instinctive urge to be annoyed whenever his brother called him, but he still had to admit that during the past year the man had not bothered him once purely for the sake of bothering him.

“What?” he snapped nonetheless when he pressed the phone to his left ear, his right still carefully paying attention to his surroundings, “I might be about to engage in a fight of life and death, so make it quick.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Mycroft chided mildly, “I am sure you are grossly exaggerating.”

“I found the sword,” Sherlock only answered curtly, “So I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

He reveled in the short moment of surprised silence that was coming from Mycroft.

“I must say I underestimated you, little brother,” Mycroft admitted, “You really have done well.”

“Yes, kisses and hugs and you’ll be allowed to speak the eulogy on my funeral, but I doubt there will be much left of me after my body has been ripped to shreds by hellhounds!” he hissed, his stare flickering back and forth between the trees in front of him. There was something moving in the dark, something big, something almost visible and Sherlock had no idea what it was.

“Don’t worry, I won’t have to burry you yet,” Mycroft promised dryly, “In fact you are about to get some most pleasant help.”

“Help?” Sherlock took a few steps backwards. There was a white shadow between the black ones and it was moving toward the clearing. “What kind of help?”

“I might have told you about him before,” Mycroft mused and sounded almost bored, “The man in the blue phone box?”  
Sherlock frowned, torn between the danger looming directly in front of him and the unexpected news coming from him mobile, “Phone box? You mean the stranger whom your secret service has been unable to locate, despite his repeated interference with supernatural happenings all over England?”

“Yesss,” Mycroft, stressing the s like he often did when he felt personally offended, “He has contacted me and turned out to be a valuable asset.”

“You trust him?” Sherlock asked in disbelief and as expected Mycroft only tsk’d.

“Sherlock, please,” he tutted, “I don’t trust anyone. Especially not when they choose to crash-land their phone box in my bedroom like this man did two hours ago.”

Against his will Sherlock had to grin. The image of a pyjama-clad Mycroft sitting up straight in his bed because there was suddenly a phone box in his flat – oh, it was wonderful.

“Stop grinning like an imbecile,” Mycroft told him, sounding as if he had bitten into a lemon, “Anyway. He should be with you within the next few minutes. I would have sent him half an hour ago but he just wouldn’t stop talking. I’m not quite sure yet whether you’ll love or hate him. Probably hate. You were always such an attention-hogging child.”

For a split second it had sounded as if he was going to call Sherlock an attention whore, but maybe he deemed this to be beneath him. Petty insults from his big brother where indeed the least of Sherlock’s problems right now.

And then the white shadow stepped out from the tree line. Sherlock’s eyes widened.

“Oh,” he said dumbly and even Mycroft must’ve caught on that something was happening.

“Sherlock?” he asked, a slightly sharper tone to his voice, “What is it?”

“I have to hang up now,” Sherlock replied breathlessly and did just that.

“Hello,” he greeted politely and inclined his head, “I have to say, it is an honor to meet you.”

The large, white stag simply blinked at him, long lashes framing lustrous black eyes, perked ears twitching. Then the stag lowered his head in a courteous gesture as well. A second later the animal had morphed into an old man.

He was tall and slender, with skin like parchment and limbs like an ancient willow. He wore a long, white beard and even longer hair, wine-red robes gently brushing against the forest ground, and he bore himself with grace and dignity, but on his lips there was a benevolent smile.

“Hello, Sherlock,” the man said and his voice took the breath right out of Sherlock’s lungs, so like thunder, like the wind, like an echo it sounded, “It good to see the face of a friend after such a long time.

Sherlock could feel his tongue move but at first the words refused to come out.

“What are you talking about?” he wanted to know when he could speak again, “How do you know my name?”

“You told in to me yourself,” the man answered mysteriously, “Or you will. Very soon, I believe. I assume you already know my name as well, do you not?”

Sherlock swallowed heavily. “Merlin,” he breathed into the night, “You are Merlin.”

And Merlin smiled. “Indeed, I am,” he nodded, “But first and foremost I am your ally and your friend.”

“How is that?” Sherlock frowned and his gaze flittered over to the sword that was still stuck in the stone, “After all I just tried to- Oh.” The frown melted from his face, “That was you. You made me think I was burning my hands off.”

Merlin chuckled, his shoulders quivering. “I was nothing personal,” he offered as excuse, “Only a minor protection charm in case someone should ever find this place and try to take what did not belong to him.”

There was no venom in his voice and Sherlock believed him.

“My apologies,” he said instead, “I simply had to give it a try.”

“I understand,” Merlin replied calmly, “You are still young and inexperienced. I, too, once made mistakes because I was too blind to see. But I am here to help you and you have to trust me.”

And strangely enough, Sherlock did. There was a great difference between respecting and trusting someone, and generally it wasn’t on his list to chitchat with age-old wizards, but something about this man made him feel calm and at ease. Of course that could just be some spell to trick him, because although Sherlock always donned enough talismans and hex bags to hold off a small army of witches he did not fool himself into believing that he could save himself from someone like Merlin himself.

“So, you’re on my side?” he asked, having to force himself to show some sort of suspicion.

“Oh, definitely,” Merlin agreed, “Though it’s a little bit more complicated than that.”

That sounded rather like making a deal with the devil. Sherlock narrowed his eyes at him.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing dangerous,” Merlin chuckled again, “In fact you only have to climb on that hill over there and open the door.”

Sherlock’s eyes looked to where Merlin pointed to the bleak slope.

“What door?” he asked, somewhat annoyed by this game or whatever it was.

“Trust me,” Merlin only repeated, “There will be a door.”

Not taking his gaze off of the wizard, Sherlock slipped his phone that he had been gripping this whole time back into his pocket and tucked his knife away as well, before easing his glove back onto his naked hand.

“So that’s it?” he asked, feeling something like disappointment bubbling up inside of him, “You tell me to climb up that hill and open some metaphorical door? It that the revelation I was waiting for?”

But Merlin didn’t seem to mind the accusatory tone. _“They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:”_ hesaid instead and turned his gaze towards the sky, “ _Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them.”_

“’Ode of Remembrance’,” Sherlock recognized, a frown marring his face, “From Laurence Binyon’s ‘For the Fallen’.”

Merlin nodded serenely, “That is where you will find us.”

“Oh,” Sherlock realized, “It’s a riddle.”

He could work with riddles, he could _solve_ riddles – riddles made him feel safe.

And so he turned around and began his ascend of the slope. The ground was dry beneath his soles and kept slipping away, and once it just gave in and he stumbled forward, catching himself on his hands and feeling rather ridiculous. When he had reached the top, however, he had no idea how to proceed. There was no door, metaphorical or otherwise.

“And now?” he called out, directing his glare at Merlin who had stepped up to the slab and was running his fingertips over the engravings in the stone. The engravings he must’ve put there once upon a time.

“Now you stay where you are and wait a few seconds, you impatient imp,” Merlin told him good-naturedly, “But by the way, I don’t like the moustache – get rid of it. And dye your hair brown again. You want Doctor Watson to recognize you, don’t you?”

Sherlock got dangerously close to get to know what it was like to feel one’s jaw dropping.

“What does John have to do with all this?” he demanded and Merlin simply laughed, “You’ll see. Now, turn around and get in. Your space taxi is waiting.”

“Space _what_?” Sherlock repeated but the words were drowned out by the sudden curious noise directly behind him, so he swung around, automatically reaching for his weapons. Instead of some demon, however, he came face to face with – a door. Specifically the door of a blue phone box that had definitely not been there before.

The detective whirled around once more, but the old wizard was gone. In his place stood a young man, barely more than a boy, with raven hair and a fay face so pale that it seemed to be glowing along with the sigils.

“Best of luck, Sherlock Holmes,” the boy said simply, without lifting his gaze from the sword in front of him, so Sherlock did as he was told.

He turned around and opened the door.

**~o0o~**

**Next Stop: Hopewell, Virginia, USA**

**~o0o~**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loads of references in this chapter. Title inspired by “The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier” (notably one of only two stories told by Holmes instead of Watson) and Recon’s “Lost Soldier”. Furthermore the hunt/case that is mentioned can be attributed to “The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot” which is also set in Cornwall, just like most of Wagner’s ‘Tristan and Isolde’. Binyon’s poem is associated with Cornwall as well.


	4. Blaze of Glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve got a message for you and your brother,” she explained.  
> “Message?” he asked, suddenly on alert, “What kind of message? Like from the angels? Or from the afterlife?”  
> “I’m not quite sure,” Missouri admitted and that was quite distressing to hear, “My guts say it’s neither, but I can’t guarantee it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ending of the seventh season royally fucked up my plans for how Dean and Sam were to be introduced in this story. So I had to come up with some insane explanation how Cas and Dean got back from Purgatory. So, at this point, the Winchesters are already back on the road. But just read for yourself.

**Chapter 3 – Blaze of Glory**

_“When you're brought into this world  
They say you're born in sin   
Well, at least they gave me something I didn't have to steal or have to win   
Well, they tell me that I'm wanted; Yeah, I'm a wanted man   
I'm a colt in your stable, I'm what Cain was to Abel   
Mister catch me if you can”_

Blaze of Glory by Bon Jovi

 

**Hopewell, Virginia, USA, 5 th July 2012**

 

It was the morning after the 4th July and the insides of Dean’s mouth tasted faintly of beer and unbrushed teeth.

They had celebrated with half a day off the road, a downright feast for Winchester standards and an evening spent under the star-filled sky. Dean was making an effort to get away from the hard stuff, so he had not broken out the whisky, accepting Sam’s grateful smile as they lay back in the damp grass and stared up into the night.

They had often done this as teenagers, Dean’s pointing out the constellations and how to use them for orientation, Sam providing his knowledge about the according Greek mythology. Dean found himself thinking back to Pollux who begged to share his immortality with his mortal twin brother Castor which led to Zeus turning them into the constellation Gemini. Pollux and Castor were usually depicted on horses, with spears in their hands for they were warriors and hunters. It was funny, really, Dean mused with a wan smile, how many parallels there were to be found between the Castores and the Winchesters, how they refused to be parted from each other. Maybe one day Sam and Dean would turn into stars as well.

At least stars probably did not have to worry about aching backs and stiff necks, he added with a mental groan, sitting up straight in the driver’s seat of the Impala. Alcohol and exhaustion had led them to sleep in the car instead of driving another hour to get to the next motel, but now Dean was regretting their decision. He was really getting too old for this.

He probably shouldn’t complain, though. Waking up in the car was definitely preferable to trying to fall asleep in Purgatory with a horde of hungry monsters (who all had anger management issues) lurking in the darkness and only an easily distracted angel (who had a shitload of other issues) to keep an eye out.

Angels are watching over you, his mother had lovingly whispered to him – and she was right. But Dean doubted that she had ever suspected that his very own guarding angel was a downright nutjob who recited Petrarchan poetry in an attempt to ease his nerve while he slew a big, purple Purgatory Monster Glob of Goo and insisted that he and Dean talk about their _feelings_ as if that would change a fucking thing.

Dean, however, had managed to turn the table and use their daily psychotherapy sessions to get Cas off of his angst and guilt-ridden self-punishment trip. He had been like a child, like a mixture between what Dean remembered of both Sam’s and his own coping mechanisms when they had been younger.

There was the short attention span, the focusing on different matters and heedless ramblings that were so totally Sam at age thirteen that it hit Dean right in the guts. But he could also recognize the avoidance of eye contact, of conflict that Dean knew he himself had always done. Better step back and give in instead of provoking another fight.

The caring and sharing shit was all New Cas, though. Winchesters didn’t talk about emotions.

The only good thing about it was that, by the time Sam finally found a way to free them, Cas was almost back to his normal self. More or less. He still didn’t like loud noises or unexpected movements, he still seemed too small sometimes, too lost, but he was back to fighting by their side and offering uncertain smiles when he didn’t get a joke but knew that it was supposed to be funny.

That had been five weeks ago. Dean was still edgy as well, still hesitant in his world. Purgatory had been nothing like Hell, no torture of any kind, only fighting and bare surviving. That was what Dean was good at, what he could do, especially with Cas by his side. But the all-invading darkness had slowly crept into his bones, had left him with a numb, hollow, heavy feeling. Hell had been all about pleasure and the deprivation of it. Purgatory had been about forgetting that pleasure existed. It was like taking all your memories of sun and air, the taste of pie and the smell of grass, the feeling of soft cotton on warm skin, and dumping it all in a barrel of deep, black ink.

And it was only when he returned and Sam pulled him into his arms that Dean had realized how he hadn’t able to remember the scent of Sam’s hair or how he had looked as a six-year-old who proudly presented his first tooth gap.

The one thing Hell and Purgatory had in common (apart from the being horrible and nerve-wrecking and shit) was that time passed differently there. The ever-lasting night in purgatory made it impossible to measure time, but they had been there for very long. Nowhere near forty years, thank God for that, but up here mere weeks had passed while Sam worked on their escape route with the help of a freshly saved Kevin, Garth, a priest from Cleveland, the skeleton of a werewolf and a piece of string. The story sounded rather outrageous in Dean’s ears, especially the involvement of Garth, but him and Cas were back on Earth so he wouldn’t complain.

He tilted his head first to the right and then to the left, letting the joints pop pleasantly, before he threw a glance into the rearview mirror because his giant of a brother had spent the night on the backseat and was still snoring softly. If his baby wasn’t, you know, his baby, Dean might’ve considered getting a more comfortable car, but he was nothing if not faithful to a lady like her. So he didn’t mind it too much when, upon opening the door and awkwardly climbing out, his knees protested and made those uncomfortable grinding noises that Dean would always associate with Bobby. From now, instead of the flask they had been forced to burn, Dean would see his old bones as a fond reminder.

The only thing that he regretted about his return from Purgatory was that this time his body had not been remade. That meant that he still had aching knees, a deadbeat liver and an overwrought heart. Now he had to content himself with the old model.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” Dean hollered and rapped his knuckles against the window. Sam immediately woke with a start and banged his head on the roof of the car.

“Fuck you,” he cursed in lieu of a greeting and glared at Dean who only laughed in response.

“Hung over, little princess? Need some painkillers?” he asked teasingly, watching as Sam rubbed his head, probably because of both the lingering effect of the alcohol and the newly acquired bump on his skull.

“What time is it?” Sam asked as he opened the backdoor, unfolding himself and wriggling out of the car with even more difficulty than his older brother had had. Dean pulled his phone out of the pocket of his jacket and glanced at the screen.  

“Just past 8 am,” he answered and grinned, “Nice to sleep in for once, yeah?”

“Would’ve been even nicer if you had brought me some coffee and pancakes to bed,” Sam mused.

“For that you would need a proper bed in the first place,” Dean countered easily and then stepped over to the end of the car to open the trunk and rifle through his bag, “C’mon, let’s brush our teeth and hit town. Maybe we can remedy you lack of pancakes and coffee there.”

“Sounds like a plan”, Sam agreed and joined his brother in their ‘still on the road’-morning routine.

 

**~o0o~**

“Okay, I’m awake now,” Sam announced, setting down his disgusting vanilla latte macchiato.

“Glad to hear I didn’t have to kiss you awake after all,” Dean winked at him, happy that he had always been the one who could get up any time of the day and still be completely alert. Sam was always grumpy, both with and without coffee, but the caffeine at least made his brain cells kick in.

“So, you think there will be anything scary in beautiful Hopewell, Virginia?” Dean asked, eyeing the newspaper someone had left on their table of the diner that promised the best pancakes.

“Considering that we haven’t been around this area in ages, added to the fact that I spent most of my time during the past months looking for a way to find you instead of hunting and that before that we were mostly occupied with our new friends the leviathans-“ Sam counted it off of his fingers,” Yes, I guess there ought to be something new in town. Or old, if it’s a ghost or something like that.”

“Well,” Dean lifted both eyebrows, “Life certainly never gets boring. Or death, for that matter.”

“Knowing us, something ridiculous is going to pop up again the moment we think we are safe,” Sam replied, dread in his voice, “Sometimes I can barely remember the times we only hunted little evil things instead of having to save the entire world from utter destruction. You know, a wendigo would be nice every once in a while. Or a werewolf.”

“I hear there’s a werewolf population in California,” Dean perked up and Sam threw him I look, “I thought you didn’t like California.”

“But I like Californian girls,” the older Winchester defended himself, “Californian girls beat wendigos anytime.”

Sam shrugged, “Fine with me. That’ll give us some nice self-made plans contrary to, you know, be expected to avert the third apocalypse and whatnot.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Dean agreed and lifted his own coffee cup to his lips.

In that moment his phone vibrated in his pocket.

“Oh fuck,” he hissed out in surprise, spilling some of the hot brewage over his hand. Quickly he set the cup down and hastily grabbed his pocket. He wasn’t used to this shit anymore. The reception in Purgatory had been non-existent at best and even now that he was back he usually didn’t get any calls.

Sam was still in contact with Kevin and some other hunters who knew that the Winchesters weren’t dead (yet or again), but Dean’s social life mainly revolved around his brother and Cas. And wasn’t that kinda pathetic?

His phone was still insistently vibrating in his hand. Dean stared hard at the caller ID which was, of course, unknown. He felt a sudden ache at the thought that sometimes Bobby’s name would flash up on the screen, not to tell him about some horrid news, but just to say hi, to hear their voice, to let them know that he was there. But now he wasn’t anymore.

Dean hit accept and held the phone to his ear.

“Yeah?” he said warily because that’s how a Winchester had to greet the world: warily.

“You better watch your tone with me, boy,” answered a distinctive female voice and out of reflex Dean immediately stood up straighter, and answered “Yes, Ma’am” before he even knew what he was doing.

“Wait,” he said then, blinking furiously, “Is that-“

“Damn right, I am,” Missouri Mosley answered pointedly and Dean felt like a little boy caught with the hand in the cookie jar. Or more appropriately: with Dad’s favourite Beretta. Sam, in the meanwhile, was watching him curiously. Getting an unexpected call nowadays was usually surprise enough, but Dean’s reaction had easily roused his attention.

“Wow,” Dean said, remembering the rotund little lady and her kickass attitude. He’d only met her once but, damn, she had left an impression upon him.

“Yes, sweetheart, someone had to teach you some manners after all,” she said in response and Dean jerked slightly, “You can read my thoughts across the phone?!”

That definitely had Sam sitting up in his chair, but Missouri only waved it off, “It’s not as if your thoughts are overly complicated, son.”

Yes, Dean really felt like a little boy. Or at least he felt a lot younger. God, how long had it been since they solved that case back in their old house in Lawrence? Shortly after he had picked up Sam from Stanford. And they had thought things were difficult back then. But it had been long before crossroad demons and angels and levianthans. Before Dad and Bobby and Rufus and Ellen and Father Murphy and Caleb and all their trusted elders died. Died to protect Sam and Dean in one way or the other.

“If you’re not gonna cheer up this very moment, boy, then I will give you a mental beating and I promise it won’t be pleasant.”

“Yes, Missouri,” Dean complied and Sam caught the hint, his eyebrows lifting impossibly high when he connected the name with the face and the shared adventure.

But what did Missouri want from them and from where did she even get his number?

“I can read your mind and you are surprised that I found out your number?” Missouri chided in an amused tone, “How did you even get through high school? And yes, barely, I know.”

“Hey!” Dean complained, but then relaxed again. This good- natured banter was strangely comforting. He hadn’t known Missouri Mosley well, only for a couple of days really, but there was something about her that calmed him. Set him on edge, like all true psychics did, but calmed him as well.

“Thank you, boy,” Missouri sniffed, “Now that the emotional part is over, would you like to get down to business?”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, I guess,” he shrugged and she couldn’t see it but she would still know. Damn, phone sex as a psychic must be kinky. … He had not just thought that while talking to a psychic. Shit, shit.

Quickly he cleared his throat and – upon noticing Sam’s flailing hand – put Missouri on speaker, so his brother could listen as well, “So, lay it on me.”

There was a moment of pointed silence from the woman, but then she sighed in surrender.

“I’ve got a message for you and your brother,” she explained.

“Message?” he asked, suddenly on alert, “What kind of message? Like from the angels? Or from the afterlife?”

“I’m not quite sure,” Missouri admitted and that was quite distressing to hear, “My guts say it’s neither, but I can’t guarantee it.”

Dean was about to protest that that was some shitty information, but Sam cut him off.

“And the message itself?” the younger Winchester asked, leaning forward a bit so he was closer to the receiver, “Does that make any sense?”

“To you maybe,” Missouri mused, “I’ve yet to figure it out. So, listen up.”

Both men expectantly leaned closer to the phone.

Missouri took a deep breath before she spoke, “The blue box contains a surprise.”

They leaned in a little closer. Missouri remained silent.

Dean frowned.

“Wait – That’s it?” he demanded in the same moment that Sam asked, “Blue box? What’s that supposed to be?”

But Missouri only clicked her tongue in a somewhat apologetic manner, “Sorry, boys, this time you know as much as I do. Usually when I sense things, I get a distinctive feel for them, you know. What they look like, what they sound like, or at least their surroundings and whatever might be connected with them. The only thing I know it that it’s linked to you Winchesters and that it’s important. Very important.”

“In short, we don’t know what kind of box and we don’t know what kind of surprise,” Dean summed it up, “Great.”

“I was thinking: curse box?” Sam proposed and his brother gave a complicated lip-twist/shoulder-shrug, “Would be the most obvious thing.”

“So do we just keep our eyes open and be careful when we come across a blue box or do we actively search for it?”  
“Question is: search where?” Dean pointed out, “Missouri?”

“Yeah, yeah, gimme a moment,” Missouri… did whatever psychics did to get a connection, “Hm… I see… a barely lit room, a stain on the wall. And then there is sound and light and… a decision.”

She paused for a moment and then huffed, “Sorry, boys, that’s all I can find out.”

“Dark room with stains on the walls,” Dean repeated in a slightly ironic tone, “Not like we get a lot of those on the job.”

“Yeah, but sudden sound and light?” Sam reminded him, “Angel maybe? And the stain on the wall could be a banning sigil.”

“Or blood,” Dean deadpanned, “Mixed with brain fluids.”

“Don’t be so morbid, you brat,” Missouri scolded him, “Up till now you have survived everything. More or less.”

“You’re keeping track on us?” Sam asked and the woman snorted, “You mean between crossroad demons, Lucifer rising and Leviathans going for president? For someone like me it ain’t too hard to figure out when and where a Winchester is involved.”

“You mean your spidey senses keep tingling because of us?” Dean laughed and she gave an exasperated, but fond little huff of laughter, “My spidey senses have turned into a full-blown tinnitus since I met you.”

“Yeah, sorry for that.”

“Not your fault, as far as I can tell,” she brushed it off, “Psychics can’t choose what they perceive.”

“Do you happen to perceive a date when it comes to our surprise box?” Sam cut in, “I mean, are we talking this week or next month?”

“Today,” Missouri answered, “The box will find its way to you today and-“

She broke off and stayed silent for a moment, before she spoke up again, more to herself than anything else, “Huh, that’s weird.”

“What weird?” Sam wanted to know, sharing a confused look with Dean who could just give him a ‘How the fuck should I know?’-face.

“I… it’s today. I know it’s today,” Missouri tried to explain what her psychic abilities were telling her, “But when I look at it, then something else is layered underneath. Like Palimpsest.”

“ _Palimpsest_?”  Dean mouthed to Sam who ignored him because he was a nerd and his hobbies mostly consisted of reading trough Wikipedia articles and learning entire encyclopedias by heart. Luckily enough, though, Missouri could hear Dean’s thoughts and took pity on him.

“Palimpsest is when an artist uses the same canvas more than once,” she elaborated, “When they didn’t have money to buy new ones, they painted them white again and basically recycled them. Van Gogh did that.”

Dean felt an inappropriate amount of pride on the fact that he at least knew who Van Gogh was.

“So something is layered underneath,” Sam prodded impatiently, “But what is it.”

“Another date,” Missouri answered, “A date in the past.”

“As in ‘our past’?” Dean asked, hoping that no old shit was coming back to bite them in their asses. Maybe their great grandaunt Winchester who tell them about some dark family secret.

“It’s… it’s connected to your past,” she replied hesitantly, “But it doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not?” Sam frowned, but it took Missouri another long moment to react.

“It’s also in your future,” she said, “And it’s 516 AD.”

**~o0o~**

 

“That’s one way to spend the day,” Sam groaned, throwing first his bag onto the floor and then himself onto the bed. It gave a similar groan of complaint.

“You don’t say,” Dean flicked on the dusty lamp on the coffee table, dying the room in a faint glow, before he sat down on the rickety chair and rubbed both hands over his face, “I hate it when I get up all worked up over something and then nothing happens.”

Sam laughed dryly, “Like when you were fourteen and spent two weeks bitching to me about how Annabelle Woods had not accepted the honor of deflowering you.”

“Yeah, well, she was a damn tease,” Dean pouted and Sam threw him a pointed glare, “She was your TA, Dean. It would have been statutory rape.”

“I would have been willing!” Dean half-yelled back and then remembered where they were and what time it was. Namely a motel room and five minutes to minute. Story of their lives.

Sighing, he leaned back in the dangerously creaking chair.

“So, what do you think? Did Missouri have a virus that kept feeding her wrong data or were we just too stupid to find the darn box?” he asked. They had spent the whole day driving through town, trying to find anything that remotely resembled a blue box. Halfway through Dean had been tempted to enter a jeweler’s shop and ask for a small, blue velvet-covered ring box, just so he could get down on one knee to propose to Sam. But that would have been way to cheesy and, you know, maybe not the best idea considering all the porn about their fictional selves that was to be found on the internet, thanks to Chuck and dedicated fans like Becky.

“Dunno,” Sam could only shrug in response, “She did say that it would find its way to us, so…”

“What, you believe some weird blue box is going to magically pop up in our motel room?” Dean cocked an eyebrow at him.

Sam shrugged again, “Hello, have you noticed what we do for a living? Stranger things have happened”

Well, Dean had to admit that that was true.

“And we still have…” Sam threw a glance at the clock that was hanging above the door, “About three minutes until what qualifies as today is officially over.

“Then let’s wait for witching hour,” Dean joked, opening his jacket to reveal his clock and the demon-killing knife he carried on his person.

Sam chuckled and rolled onto his side, obviously not too worried about the surprise that had been promised to them. But then the chuckle died in his throat.

“Dean,” he said, slowly sitting up. The tone in his voice immediately had his brother on alert.

“What?” Dean demanded, tensing his muscles.

Sam pointed over into the corner of the room, “There is a stain on the wall.”

Because there was. Not a blood stain or a banning sigil or anything supernatural. It was mold, nothing more, a dark shadow creeping up the wall, just like they had encountered in many other crappy motels like this one.

Dean glanced over from the stain on the wall, through the barely-lit room, over at the clock that declared it was still today, just like Missouri had described.

And suddenly there was sound and light. A strange sound, an indescribably ancient, yet timeless sound, and a cool light that flickered before it became steady and grew stronger and stronger. Dean reached inside of his jacket and drew his gun. Sam rolled off the bed and did the same.

Because all of a sudden there was a blue box in the opposite corner of the room. A fucking big blue box that seemed like neither a curse box nor a ring box or anything remotely familiar that did had ever seen.

“What’s that?” Dean hissed in confusion.

“That’s a police box,” Sam whispered back and his brother gave him a sideways glare because, duh, it said POLICE right at the top.

“Yeah, but what does it do?”

“It doesn’t do anything,” Sam replied, “In England you can use them to directly call the police when you need them.

Yeah, Dean thought, nerd.

Out loud he said, “So I assume they are not supposed to materialize inside of our room?”

“Uh, no,” Sam said, “What are we gonna do?”

“No idea,” Dean eyed the thing, “It’s got a door. Enter it?”

Sam grinned and nodded over to the clock that was just short of striking midnight, “It’s still Thursday. Been a while since something exciting happened on a Thursday, right?”

“Right,” Dean unlocked the safety of his gun and together they stepped closer to the phone box. They exchanged an encouraging look and Sam made an inviting gesture.

“After you,” Sam said and Dean shook his head, “If you had said ‘Ladies first’ I would have punched you in the face.”

Sam only chuckled and Dean reached out his hand to pull open the door.

Missouri had been right. What awaited them inside could definitely be counted as a surprise.

 

**~o0o~**

**Next Stop: Camelot**

**~o0o~**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved Missouri and I wished she would have appeared in more than just one episode. Not that many important references in this chapter. The Palimpsest was obviously about “Vincent and the Doctor”, while the werewolves in California are a little hint about my newest obsession “Teen Wolf”.


	5. Valley of the Fallen Kings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I doubt that’ll be of much use,” Arthur warned him quietly, “Look at their eyes, Merlin.”
> 
> And then Merlin looked. The men’s eyes were pitch-black, not just their irises but the whole of their eyeballs, reflecting the flickering flames.
> 
> Well, at least that explained the growing sense of unease that had been unfurling in Merlin’s stomach like a poisonous snake. Aside from getting cut to pieces by thin air and Morgana dragging him to the damned Valley of the Fallen Kings via a blasted portal, there was some marrow-deep knowledge that some very dark magic was at work here.

**Chapter 4 – Valley of the Fallen Kings**   
_“Open up the silent center of your mind,  
I now want to know the future of your kind   
In the valley of the kings, when the storm breaks loose again   
Then the gods return to fight, for the future of their lives   
In the valley of the kings”  
Valley of the Kings by Blind Guardian  
  
_

**Camelot, summer 516 AD**

Merlin didn’t even bother to hide his big yawn as he slid out of the saddle and instead rubbed the back f his hand across his tired eyes.

“Manners, Merlin,” Arthur chided him, but there was an easy grin on his face, though he seemed just as exhausted. Nevertheless he held his back straight and his blue gaze was alert. The bearing of a king and soldier. Without quite being aware of it, Merlin squared his shoulders and stood a little taller.

They had just returned from a courteous visit to the estate of one of the lords and the dust of the roads still clung to their clothes and skin. Over the years spent in Camelot Merlin had grown used to the marrow-deep exhaustion of running around doing chores and saving the royal ass, but sitting on horseback for hours on end and then listening to pleasant but mostly mindless conversation between Arthur and some noblemen was grating on his nerves. Well, at least sweat and dirt were preferable to sweat, dirt and blood, so Merlin wouldn’t complain.

Out of habit he held out his unoccupied hand for the reins of Arthur’s steed, but the king only shook his head at him.

“No longer one of your duties, Merlin,” he reminded his manservant, “But you can bring up dinner for Guinevere and me after you got washed up.”

“Yes, sire,” Merlin conceded, handing his own mare over to one of the stable boys that had already hurried towards their entourage.

“Would you like to sleep in tomorrow or shall I wake you on time for the council?” he asked, deft fingers freeing first his own saddlebag filled with personal belongings and then stepping over to do the same with Arthur’s, slinging them both over his narrow shoulders.

“I would like to sleep in,” Arthur explained with a showy gesture and an exaggerated sigh, “But as I am the king who is usually expected to fulfill his duties in order to properly rule over his subjects, I assume that it would be best if you woke me after the cock’s first call so I can consult my advisors.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Merlin ducked his head, “No need to get snippy. I was just hoping for some leisure time for myself.”

“Just bring me dinner and you can have the rest of the evening off,” Arthur promised, “The gods know you direly need your beauty sleep.”

“And if you had looked into the mirror lately you would have noticed that you needed some as well,” Merlin countered and side by side they made their way across the courtyard, nodding and smiling towards the familiar faces that greeted them.

“My wife hasn’t complained yet,” Arthur pointed out smugly, lifting his chin in that distinctly arrogant manner that always reminded Merlin of their very first meeting.

“Never wondered why she closes her eyes whenever she kisses you?” Merlin teased and then yelped and jumped to the side when Arthur’s elbow jabbed him in the ribs.

“You, my friend, are entirely too certain of your belief that I won’t just give in to my urge and have you beheaded for you unprecedented insolence,” Arthur told him with a growl but the spark in his eyes belied the warning. Merlin cherished those moments when Arthur was more than just king and warrior and son of Uther Pendragon, but simply husband and friend and still a child at heart.

Quickly, to escape Arthur’s pretended wrath, he made a few big steps to skip out of arms’ reach and then hurried towards the stairs that led to the main part of the castle. Fortunately he could see his queen stepping through the broad oak doors in that very moment, wrapped in a wine-red dress and a warm smile, and Merlin took this as an opportunity to save his neck.

“Gwen, help me!” he called out, his free hand flailing to get her attention, “He’s going to strangle-“

But he broke off abruptly, his steps faltering, at first not quite sure what had thrown him like this. Then a solid body slammed into him from behind, an arm closed around his neck, making him bend over, and Arthur had him in an unrelenting headlock.

“Strangle you?” the king asked sweetly, “Was that what you were going to say?”

“Arthur!” Merlin choked and gasped, “Arthur, let go, let go!”

And maybe there was enough urgency, enough panic in his voice to convey that this was no longer part of their game, but a second later Arthur pulled back, turned him around and stared at him with a questioning look, though Merlin did not know how to answer.

Something was off, he could tell as much. Some subtle change in the air, like the foreboding of a storm though the sky was clear and unthreatening, some random current of wind that tugged at Arthur’s red cloak and made Merlin’s hackles rise, some shadows that faded from where they were supposed to be without any source of light to banish them.

Magic, Merlin thought. Powerful obscure magic, and he could feel it in his fingertips and on his tongue, in his lungs as he inhaled.

“What on earth,” Arthur hissed and his gaze slid form Merlin’s pale face to a spot just above his left shoulder. Merlin didn’t have to turn around to see what was happening because he could witness the same behind Arthur.

A crackling sound, like thunder splitting the sky, quieter and yet much closer than any natural phenomenon allowed, and then the air itself was ripped apart, tiny fissures first, but then they widened and spread and through them shone a blindingly white light, though it was outlined by the deepest black, like tar and night and the Great Dragon’s shadow.

Merlin’s breath hitched. Whatever was waiting behind the light was old, was ancient and his fear rooted him to the spot, unable to think, to make a decision.

“Merlin!” Arthur barked, snapping him out of his trance, before grabbing him by the arm and then placing a hand on top of his head to make him duck through underneath one of the crack, following him quickly before pushing him forward a couple of steps, away from the spider’s net in which they had been trapped just moments before and that was unfurling with every passing second.

Merlin was dimly aware of the hushed voices around them, of the armed knights and guards that had approached and warily surrounded those cracks in the atmosphere that built up into a broad column, the danger of the unknown hovering above them.

But Merlin was listening to the other voices, the hissing, the whispering, the subdued wailing, but suppressed like passing through a veil, a cloud. Above that, however, clear and commanding, he could hear a familiar voice chanting words in a language he did not recognize.

“Morgana,” he breathed, eyes fixed on the cracks that were now fusing into bigger ones, mending like the pieces of cloth he used to fix holes in his tunics.

“What?” Arthur’s head whipped around to stare at him, “Is this her doing? How do you know?”

Oh. So Merlin was the only one who could hear that. Arthur had Excalibur drawn and his eyes were flittering back and forth between his shell-shacked servant and the ominous column.

Before Merlin could answer, though, a sharp pain made him jerk and stare down at the back of his hand where a long, thin line bled bright red droplets onto his white skin.

“Ouch,” he cursed under his breath as another pain hit him, this time across his left upper arm and then just above his knee.

“You’re bleeding,” Arthur stared with wide eyes as a sharp cut slid right across Merlin’s cheekbone, closely followed by one on his eyebrow, and two long gashes across his lower back and down along his thigh. Within moments Merlin was covered in shallow cuts, each barely more than a hair’s breadth, but painful nonetheless as they slit through the sensitive skin of his ankles, his neck, his ears. He lifted his hands in an attempt to cover his face, but his fingertips and palms were bleeding as well and he only managed to smear blood across his lips, the sickly sweet, metallic taste filling his mouth.

“Merlin,” Arthur’s voice was tinted with concern, feeble and helpless, but Merlin didn’t dare open his eyes, afraid to expose them whatever was slicing him up. Instead he flinched away from Arthur’s touch as the man placed a hand on his shoulder. And suddenly Merlin felt himself pushed and pulled by an invisible force tugging at his limbs.

“No!” he protested, digging his heels into the cobblestones but unable to stop the movement. Arthur cursed colorfully but in a manner that Merlin didn’t have to open his eyes to know that he was the only one being dragged towards the column which he suspected was no longer made of cracks but had formed into a single surface of white.

“Don’t get close to it!” he yelled when he heard the well-known chitter of chainmail, most likely belonging to some inexperienced guard or some heroic idiot like Gwaine who believed that all problems could be solved with a strong arm and a bold sword.

Merlin was fighting with all his might, even attempted to fuse his soles to the ground by using magic, but instead he only felt how his feet were pulling free from his shoes, so he stopped and tried to think of another escape.

The cuts on his skin had either let up or he didn’t feel them anymore and he couldn’t quite decide which possibility was worse. But the whispers had grown louder and Morgana was still chanting, seemingly without pausing for breath. By now, though, Merlin couldn’t make out a single word, his blood pumping loudly in his ears, drowning out most other sounds.

“It’s a portal!” he exclaimed in sudden realization, just when he was sure that he was directly in front of what he now knew was a door to _somewhere._ Morgana was trying to kidnap him, to get rid of him, to toss him someplace he wouldn’t return from. It was in that moment that he felt a hand grab a hold of his collar.

“Arthur, don’t!” he protested immediately, half-choked by his neckerchief, “You don’t know what she wants to do!”

“Damn right,” Arthur grunted and then his arm reached across Merlin’s midsection, “You think I’ll just allow her to spirit you away?”

“Arthur, stop,” Merlin was torn between pulling alongside with him or struggling free, between fear for himself and his duty to protect Arthur at all costs.

“Percival!” the king called for his knights. “Gwaine, help us!”

In that moment there was a sudden jerk forward and Arthur tightened both arms around him, teeth gnashing next to Merlin’s ear. Against his will Merlin’s eyes snapped open. He was standing directly on the threshold of the portal, beneath his soles only nothingness and in front of him a vast expanse of misty fog instead of the expected light and shadows.

“Let go!” Merlin demanded once more, unwilling to drag his king along with him, but Arthur only scoffed, “As if. Capable servants are hard to come by nowadays.”

Merlin’s feeble laugh turned into a yelp as he lost his footing, suddenly dangling in thin air, with Arthur teetering on the edge. Then he heard cloth tearing and Gwaine growling ‘Dammit, dammit’ and Merlin knew that Arthur’s cloak had just torn and that the knights were losing their grip on Arthur.

Then they were falling.

When Merlin came to he felt like he had been tossed and turned by the magical storms he could conjure, and considering what he had just gone through that comparison probably wasn’t too far off.

“Merlin, you awake?” Arthur’s voice asked in reaction to his stifled groan, the hard edge in his voice softened by worry.

“More or less,” Merlin grunted, forcing his eyes open and feeling for any severe injuries on his head, relieved when he found none. He was lying on the forest ground, a thin layer of fallen leaves beneath him and a twig digging into his side. When he glanced up he looked upon Arthur’s square back, Excalibur in his hand, a protective wall to shield Merlin.

The sorcerer wiped a hand across his face, relatively unsurprised when he felt the blood still wet and warm on his skin. He couldn’t have been out for long.

“Where are we?” he wanted to know, groggily pushing himself up on his arms.

“Valley of the Fallen Kings,” Arthur replied curtly, “Can you get up?”

“I think so,” Merlin shakily got to his feet and only now he saw what Arthur had been facing and protecting him from.

“Oh,” he said, blinking, “This is bad.”

“You don’t say,” Arthur said dryly, knuckles white around his sword’s hilt.

In the midst of the valley there was a fire, its flames licking up high towards the dusk-tinted sky, but not touching the branches of the surrounding trees. And in front of his, her back towards the prince and his servant, arms lifted in a grand gesture, stood Morgana, the light of the fire catching on her black velvet dress.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Guarding Morgana with menacing smiles upon their twisted faces stood ten men, all dressed like peasants but holding spears and artless swords in their hands.

Merlin swallowed heavily, unsure what to make of the situation, “Should we make a run for it?”

But Arthur shook his head. “I believe there to be more of those guards waiting between the trees,” he explained and then, in an afterthought, he added, “And I sprained my ankle. I don’t think I can run very fast or far.”

Quickly Merlin glanced down and for the first time he noted Arthur’s unsteady stance, most of his weight placed on his left foot. Merlin swallowed again, closing his fingers around the hilt of the dagger he always carried around on his belt.

“I doubt that’ll be of much use,” Arthur warned him quietly, “Look at their eyes, Merlin.”

And then Merlin looked. The men’s eyes were pitch-black, not just their irises but the whole of their eyeballs, reflecting the flickering flames.

Well, at least that explained the growing sense of unease that had been unfurling in Merlin’s stomach like a poisonous snake. Aside from getting cut to pieces by thin air and Morgana dragging him to the damned Valley of the Fallen Kings via a blasted portal, there was some marrow-deep knowledge that some very dark magic was at work here.

“What are they?” Arthur breathed, never taking his eyes from the men, “They look like villagers and yet… they are not themselves. Have you ever heard of anything like this?”

Merlin wracked his brain for anything he might have read in Gaius’s books, but it was difficult to concentrate.

“Possessions,” he muttered, “The might be possessed.”

“Possessed?” Arthur echoed, “By what?”

To that Merlin had no answer. “Morgana’s will?” he guessed uncertainly, “It could be anything. Evil spirits or… whatever she might have summoned.”

Morgana herself finally deigned them worthy of seeing her face, pale and cruel and beautiful as the moon, and she turned around with a sharp smirk on her painted lips.

“Arthur,” she greeted in a mockingly charming tone, “What a pleasant surprise. It’s so good to see you. I might just slit your throat on the spot instead of coming up with another complicated scheme to kill you.”

“Yes, that little game of yours is getting a touch repetitious,” Arthur drawled out, his voice steady and unafraid, “Let’s just draw the line here and say that I will always persevere. You will never become Queen of Camelot.”

“But not for lack of trying,” Merlin commented under his breath. His whole body ached, the cuts on his body stung and there was an insistent pull behind his eyes, a lingering effect of his short unconsciousness that wanted to pull him back into the dark.

Fervently he thought of a way to magic them out of here, to at least distract Morgana for a little while, but as he reached deep and touched his magic it felt just as drained as the rest of him did. He was rather sure that he’d still be able to perform a fair bit of sorcery – he just didn’t know to what extend it would threaten himself.

But the one fact that made even less sense than everything else, the thing that had nagged him from the moment he realized that Morgana was behind all this – why was she targeting him?

When she had infected him with the Fomorroh the answer had been obvious enough; but now Arthur was here with him and while it didn’t seem like it upturned her plans, she didn’t act as if this was the fulfillment of her life-long wish either. Instead she stepped forward, the men moving with her like the hem of her dress she lazily dragged through the dirt.

“I will get to you in time, dear brother of mine,” Morgana promised Arthur with a condescending smile, “But first I have to take care of some more important matters.”

And she tilted her head to the side to look upon Merlin, suddenly much too close for his comfort.

“Stay away from him,” Arthur ordered when she was standing directly in front of the younger man, but by the way he clenched his jaw and didn’t move an inch in was clear that she had done something to keep him in place. Other than upholding the spell she completely ignored him, though.

“What’s so special about you, boy?” she asked Merlin in that mild tone a little girl might use to talk to her ragdoll, “From the day you set foot into Camelot to every single time you escaped Uther’s wrath. When Arthur first mentioned that insolent peasant that had already defied him twice, that unknown kind of respect and fascination in his eyes, I had a suspicion that something was about to change. And then you went and saved the prince and Gwen and Uther and the whole kingdom again and again and half of the time no one really knew, did they? But my eyes have been opened, Merlin, and I see now that we are so alike. It must’ve been so lonely. Why didn’t you entrust yourself to me? I would have understood.”

Merlin held his breath, afraid that she would now reveal his secret. Arthur would know. Was this what she wanted? Destroy Arthur’s trust in him and see them break apart? But Morgana only lifted her hand and placed it on his cheek. He flinched away, both from the touch itself and the renewed pain burning along his broken skin.

“I’m sorry to see that you got a little roughened up on your way here,” she apologized, her gaze and fingers tracing the cut across his cheekbone, “You see, it was my first time creating a portal. I was just happy I didn’t accidentally slice you in two.”

That notion made Merlin blanch and tighten his hold on his dagger.

“You have to admit, though, that it was an ingenious way to get my hands on you,” she continued, “Getting in and out of Camelot unnoticed is such a hazard nowadays, especially when you are dragging a reluctant hostage along. I did consider simply assaulting you while you were traveling, but I’m sure you agree that this is so much more elegant. No one knows where you are, no one knows where to start looking. You might’ve simply dropped off the face of the earth and your petty little friends would be none the wiser.”

Her thumb gently brushed across his lower lip, “But I have plans for you, my dear Merlin, plans that will make you tremble in awe and fear. You should feel honored.”

Merlin wanted to say something along the lines of ‘No, thank you’, but then she leaned in closer and suddenly her mouth was pressed against his. Next to them Arthur made a strangled noise, Morgana pushed her tongue between his lips and Merlin let out a startled gasp. With an amused smile Morgana drew back.

“Now that was easy,” she remarked, staring up at him through lowered lashes, “You are so inexperienced. Too busy to save your master’s hide to meet the kitchen maids for a tumble in the hay, are you?”

If it weren’t for his exhaustion and confusion Merlin would have blushed hotly; as it was, though, all colour drained from his cheeks as one of the dark-eyed men stepped forward to hand Morgana a bronze chalice and a glinting knife, both of which were engraved with strange symbols Merlin recognized to be of druid origin.

“I’m afraid this will hurt a little more than the kiss,” Morgana mused as the man first took Merlin’s dagger from his limp hand and then grabbed his wrist to present Morgana the open palm. Merlin tried to struggle, tried to resist, but just like Arthur’s his body would just not obey, leaving him powerless while he had to watch as Morgana lifted the knife, her fingertips already smudged with his blood.

The blade cut deep into the flesh, directly along the curved line that followed the heel of his hand, and Merlin his and clenched his teeth as the dark blood oozed out of the wound, thick rivulets creeping across his skin, dripping into the chalice Morgana was holding underneath, lazy dewdrops on a spring morning.

“I have breath and blood,” she told him and her smile widened a bit, “Now I only need body.”

Body didn’t sound good. Body really didn’t sound good.

Merlin clenched his eyes shut when Morgana raised the blade once more but she merely cut off a strand of his hair and tossed it into the cup. His relief, however, was short-lived.

“Now,” she told the man that was holding Merlin in place, “The tongs, please.

Merlin’s breath hitched. Tongs?

“Morgana, don’t,” Arthur said for that was all that he could do as his half-sister contemplatively looked down at Merlin’s long, white fingers, his wrist still caught in an unrelenting grip.

“You really shouldn’t have him work so hard, Arthur,” she chided, “Look at his hands, covered in blisters and burns and callouses. Is that how you treat a friend?”

And she closed the tongs on the white bit of Merlin’s thumbnail and pulled.

The pained scream got stuck in Merlin’s throat and instead he clenched his jaw and breathed through his nose. A second later it was over, leaving him with a sluggishly bleeding and achingly throbbing hand.

Arthur was letting out a long string of swear words, cursing Morgana into the day after tomorrow, but she only let the fingernail drop into the chalice and smiled serenely.

“I’m alright, Arthur,” Merlin reassured him weakly when he noticed that his friend’s threats had turned into concerned questions for his well-being. Morgana looked from Arthur to Merlin and back again.

“But of course,” she said, a sudden light in her green eyes, “Why didn’t I think of this earlier. This will be so much easier if you give your permission.”

“Permission for what?” Arthur ground out.

Morgana sighed, took a step forward and then the tip of her knife was pointed towards Arthur’s left eye.

“Merlin, love,” she addressed him, twirling the hilt in her grip, “What would you be willing to pay in order to save your king’s pretty eyes? Would you do anything? Would you play along?”

“Merlin, don’t listen to her,” Arthur told him, his voice raspy. Rationally Merlin knew that he was right. Morgana had said that she wanted to kill Arthur anyway. The choice was either resistance and torture or agreeing to whatever she wanted in order to allow Arthur a quick death. Neither sounded overly appealing.

Merlin wondered whether he should make an attempt to call Kilgharrah, but suspected that he would only be silenced in a painful manner. So he would have to stall and buy some time until he came up with a better solution.

“What do you even want?” he demanded to know. Surely she would at least explain what she expected him to agree to.

“Oh, don’t fear, boy, it is easy, so easy,” she tilted her head back and let out a jittering laugh, dragonfly wings on the surface of a clear tarn, “You just have to say yes. But even if you don’t, it will still happen. He is just so grand and mighty.”

“He?” Merlin repeated, “Who is he then and what does he have to do with me?”

“Everything,” she only said and there was no telling which question that was supposed to answer, “But I see what you are trying to do, Merlin, so let me tell you that it will not work. If need be, He will force you into obedience, He will take you and break you and you won’t ever be able to resist Him.”

“But what exactly would he want from me?” Merlin asked, though he suspected that it could only be his magic or possibly even his inheritance as a dragon lord – both of which he did not want Arthur to find out about. But Morgana’s reply was entirely unexpected.

“Your pretty face and skinny body,” she chirped as she turned on her heel and gracefully glided back to the still vividly burning fire.

“If you let anyone lay a hand on him, I swear by the gods, Morgana, that I will once and for all forget any willingness I might have had to forgive you your sins,” Arthur lashed out verbally and his face was an ugly grimace and he fought against his invisible bonds.

“Arthur. Arthur,” Merlin murmured in an attempt to calm him. Hot blood and empty threats wouldn’t get them anywhere.

“You poor little thing,” Morgana glanced back over her shoulder, fake pity in her voice, “I already did lay hand on him and you could only watch. What do you expected to do once He appears to take your precious friend away from you?”

Merlin thought quickly, his breath coming in rapid, shallow bursts. They needed to know what they were dealing with, what they had to prepare for. Whoever Morgana kept referring to was someone powerful, so that wasn’t much to go on, but she needed Merlin’s blood, breath and body to do so and apparently she wanted to summon that creature. A creature that wanted Merlin’s face.

The thought hit him like lightning as his gaze fell upon the black-eyes guards.

“He wants to possess me,” he said, barely more than a breath, and while Morgana didn’t hear Arthur did and he whipped his head around to stare at him, denial and horror written on his face.

It wasn’t like there hadn’t been enough cases in the past when either of them hadn’t quite been himself, not to mention their friends who had been possessed in various ways, Gaius and Lancelot and Elyan – but both men could tell that this was something much bigger and much more dangerous than a goblin or a vengeful spirit. Merlin could only think of Cornerlius Sigan and how he had killed Cedric by leaving his body, but Merlin had fought and defeated Sigan. The being Morgana wanted to call upon sounded even more threatening and at the moment Merlin was in no shape for any kind of fight.

Arthur was still mulishly straining against his bonds with both mind and body, while Merlin watched as Morgana chanted a few more words, a different language than before, and with a start he realized that it was Latin. He hadn’t studied Gaius’s tomes enough to understand all of it, but he caught a few random words, something about vita and mors and sanguis and voluntas and possidere and other stuff that didn’t sound overly reassuring.

“Aperi ostium istud inter mundos ut intrare regni nostri!“ she finished triumphantly and a split second later the flames blazed, at once turning bright green which was enough of a give-away that her spell had actually worked.

“Open this door between the worlds and enter our realm,” Arthur translated, his adam’s apple wobbling as he swallowed thickly, “She’s really going through with it. Summoning something from another world altogether – how can she be this foolish?”

Merlin couldn’t help but agree, although he was slightly surprised that Arthur had actually caught up on that point being the danger of the matter instead of simply cursing all things magical. Then again, Arthur had come a long way since his father’s death and there was no telling how many of the books he asked Geoffrey to bring him actually dealt with sorcery and the like. Instead of simply inheriting Uther’s mindless hate he might have chosen to get to know his enemy. And Merlin would later find a moment to be very impressed by that – once they had saved their asses, to be exact.

But it seemed that the rite was no yet finished, for Morgana continued to speak, this time in a language neither of them could place. After a couple of words she paused and leaned forward, deeply exhaling into the fire that seemed to preen and glow like a child under his mother’s praise.

“My breath,” Merlin realized, “That was why she took my breath.”

His suspicion hardened when she spoke a few more words and then raised the chalice high above her head, clearly about to throw it into the flames. But she didn’t get a chance to do so.

A sound like the child of thunder and lightning tore through the air, though it was nothing like when the portal had opened, instead much quicker and more precise, but it did not seem to be part of the summoning for Morgana let out a shriek and the chalice dropped from her hands, tumbling to the ground and rolling away, spilling its meager contents across the dirt.

“Noo!” she screeched, making a jerky move as if she wanted to fall to her knees and pick it up again before she obviously decided otherwise and twirled around, facing the two strangers that suddenly jumped out of the shadows of the forest, skidded down the slope and then were standing in the valley, halfway between Morgana and the boys, but already surrounded by the black-eyed guards.

“Merlin, the bindings,” Arthur hissed upon noticing that his sister’s spell had broken along with her concentration and then he spun around gracefully, hacking Excalibur squarely into the back of the man that had still been posed behind Merlin and obviously about to break his neck, but now fell down to his knees in with a choked scream, bluish lightning bolts crisscrossing along the wound before all life went out of him.

Merlin’s guilt and regret that this human that had simply been possessed by evil instead of truly being evil himself was pushed aside in favor of relief and gratefulness.

“Thanks,” he gasped out, happy that Kilgharrah had been thorough enough to forge a sword that could apparently kill pretty much everything; it seemed that a normal sword could not stand its ground against these creatures.

Both he and Arthur turned to watch as the two strangers fought their way through the other possessed villagers, one of them brandishing a sliver knife that easily cut through throats and let the men die in the same fashion Excalibur did, while the taller one held some sort of iron pipe in his hands that exploded fire and thunder into the air. Whenever the peasants were hit they stumbled back, whatever wounds they were left with healing within moments, but at least it held them off long enough for the other stranger to keep up his deadly dance with the knife.

“You okay there, Sammy?” the knife-bearer called over his shoulder as the one called Sammy delivered a swift punch into the round face of a villager.

“Yeah,” Sammy answered and glanced over at his friend and then, “Dean, duck!”

Dean reacted instantly, dropping to the ground, barely avoiding the sword going for his neck, and then kicked the legs from beneath the possessed before slamming the pointy end of the blade into the man’s eye, much like Morgana had just threatened to with Arthur, though this was more of a killing quickly instead of torturing slowly manner.

“There are more coming from the forest!” Arthur exclaimed, both to Merlin and their saviors, Sammy and Dean.

The strangers looked around and Dean cursed loudly, “How about an exorcism, Sammy?”

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus,” Sammy immediately began and the black-eyed men shrank back before attacking even more viciously, “Omnis satanica potestas, omnis infernalis-“

He broke off when he jumped out of the way to escape a spear headed for his innards, grabbing hold of the shaft instead and pulling his attacker forward to then jab his elbow into an already crooked nose.

“Omnis infernalis adversii,” Dean picked up where his comrade had left off, but he too was interrupted by another assault.

“Damn it!” he growled, sinking his knife into a roughly-clothed chest, “A little help here!”

The request seemed to be directed at no one in particular, but Arthur charged forward nonetheless, running despite his injured leg, Excalibur felling another man before he even reached Sammy and Dean, Merlin hot on his heels because more of the creatures were closing on them and he didn’t dare being left behind, preferring to be in the heart of the battle, even if that meant he had to rely on being protected by the others.

“Who are you?!” Morgana’s face was scrunched up in an angry grimace, the mocking smiles from before long since gone now that the tide had turned. Her gaze flickered between Excalibur and the unknown knife, probably wondering why two of these extraordinary weapons happened to be in the same place just to mess up her intricate plans.

She raised her arms, obviously about to cast a spell and turn the odds into her favor again, but Merlin placed himself between her and the three warriors, holding up a hand to show her that he was prepared to fight as well.

For a moment the fury in her eyes melted away to something like pity.  
“You want to stand your ground, boy?” she mocked, inclining her head, similar to the time when she had still lived in Camelot, uncorrupted and fond of Arthur’s many follies, “How sweet. Even though you know it might kill you, considering what state you are in?”

“Well, a few moments ago Arthur and I were still at your mercy; now your little army has been drastically reduced and we got some powerful back-up,” Merlin shrugged, “I guess I’ll take my chances and make the best of it.”

Morgana’s smirk slid off her lips and all of a sudden Merlin was revolted by the thought that she had kissed him with that mouth, with that gate of hell that slit her face apart. A strangled groan, however, made his blood freeze and he whipped around.

Arthur was pressing a hand to a wound along his ribs, blood already staining the fabric of his tunic and Merlin cursed the fool for wearing his swishy cloak but not his chainmail for their journey from Lord Derek’s estate. It felt like an eternity had passed since they had left in the morning. Night was already falling around them, cooling the air and drenching the forest in darkness, though the valley was still illuminated by the big fire, even if it had turned from green to red and orange again.

“You will regret this,” Morgana snarled, cracking her knuckles, “I will make you pay.”

Another of those miniature thunders broke free and Morgana jumped away from whatever had just hit the ground mere inches from her toes. Merlin twisted his head around, unsure of what to do, whether to fight Morgana or hurry to Arthur’s side, when he spotted a dark figure standing between two trees on the small cliff to his right.

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus,“ the third stranger announced loudly, “Omnis Satanica potesta, omnis incursio infernalis adversii.”

Swiftly the man stepped back into the shadows and the crossbow bolt that had been shot across the valley hit the tree trunk into on his chest, though he continued speaking, “Omnis congregatio et secta diabolica, ergo, draco maledicte ecclesiam tuam.”

Another bolt, just as ineffective as the first.

“Secura tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos.”

From one second to the next there were moans and groans filling the clearing, Morgana’s high-pitched ‘No! No!’ loud above it all, and Merlin turned just in time to see the black smoke escaping through the mouths of the possessed men who then fell to the ground, unconscious.

“God fucking damn it!” the man called Dean swore in that moment and Merlin’s gaze fell onto Arthur who had gone down to his knees, feebly trying to cover the gash on his side.

“We have to treat the wound,” Dean decided, crouching down to sling Arthur’s left arm across his shoulder, “Help me, Sam. Take the sword, take the sword, damn it.”

Sam complied without protest, grabbing Excalibur and supporting Arthur from the other side. The king groaned but let himself be manhandled into a standing position.

“Don’t you dare!” Morgana threatened, lifting her hands once more, but Merlin was quicker and sent a small burst of magic, just enough to knock her off her feet as he still felt too weak to attempt anything more draining.

Then he turned around and hastily followed Sam and Dean, deeming them worthy of his trust for now as they had proven themselves to be valuable allies, especially now that Arthur needed immediate help. He scrambled after them as they climbed back up the slope from which they had first come, but then they disappeared between the trees and when Merlin caught up there was no sight of them. Instead there was some sort of tiny shed, barely more than the smallest linen closet back at the castle, and it was painted blue and part of it glowed in the dark.

Merlin’s step faltered, staring at the strange shed, unsure what to make of it, but it seemed to have a door and that suggested the possibility that Dean and Sam had hoisted Arthur into it. But for what use? The thing must’ve been completely crammed, housing three full-grown men. It didn’t make any sense.

A twig snapped behind him and then there was the still nameless stranger whose Latin words had broken Morgana’s spell on the possessed men. He was very tall and thin, almost haggard, with a long face and high cheekbones, his hair thick and dark. Slightly startled Merlin realized that this man looked a bit like him.

“Who are you?” Merlin demanded, a stormy look in his eyes, suspicious now that Arthur had been taken from him.

Strangely enough a pleased smile spread over the man’s face, “My name is Sherlock Holmes and we are here to help you. You have to trust us.”

Merlin glanced over his shoulder where Morgana had long since gotten back to her feet and seemed to be contemplating how to proceed.

 “Damn it,” he cursed quickly, knowing that he didn’t have much of a choice. “Alright. What have you done to Arthur?”

“We took him to the Doctor. He’ll help him,” Sherlock Holmes replied reassuringly, “We knew that you would need our help.”

“Oh yeah?” Merlin eyed him warily, “Then how did you know where to find us?”

Sherlock’s smile widened a fraction, “Someone gave us a hint. Told us to go to the place of the fallen.”

“And who exactly was that someone?”

But Sherlock only stepped up to the blue shed and closed his fingers around the handle.

“It’s a bit of a long story,” Sherlock said and pulled open the door to the shed, “So why don’t you join us?”

With these words he entered the shed which – by all means – should have been completely stuffed if Sam, Dean and Arthur had really been in there. But when Merlin stepped closer to stick his head in curiously, his eyes widened in astonishment.

It was bigger on the inside!

 

**~o0o~**

**Next Stop: London, England**

**~o0o~**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, finally some actual action. Wonder what Morgana might be up to?   
> I dated this 516 AD because King Arthur is said to have lived around the late 5th and early 6th century and I estimate he should be around 26 at this point.


	6. To Those about to Rock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What news?” John demanded when no answer was forthcoming, “I’m inside of a friggin’ phone box that landed inside of my flat and that is about the size of a Hilton suite, there is a poor chap bleeding all over the floor, I have seen at least two shotguns, a knife, a dagger and an honest to God sword in your possession, I know not a single one of you dickheads and now you expect me to just play along without a single clue of what’s happening. Cheers, but once I’m finished here I might just shoot the rest of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case this isn't made obvious while reading: We're back to the moment John enters the Tardis, at which point the Doctor has already picked up the others, making John last to join the group. So the past three chapters were basically flashbacks.

**Chapter 5 – For Those about to Rock**

_“Stand up and be counted  
For what you are about to receive  
We are the dealers  
We'll give you everything you need  
Hail hail to the good times”_

_For Those about to Rock by AC/DC_

 

**London, England, 29 th January 2013**

 

To say that John was flabbergasted, when he first set foot into the phone box that had magically appeared in the sitting room of 221B, was a bit of an understatement.

First of all, the thing was bigger on the inside, bigger than the sitting room itself, so that was a bit of a surprise.

Then there was the variety of people waiting inside, all of them male, and very tall, so he felt immediately more wary than if he had been greeted by, say, a small of group of nice Mrs. Hudson-like ladies, offering him biscuits and tea. But one of the men was lying on the floor, his shirt cut open to reveal a long, rather deep gash along his ribs, a younger, slighter boy kneeling beside him, his face and hands covered in shallow cuts, his rough, plain clothes shred as well.

At once John went into doctor-mode.

“Does he need help?” he asked, not lowering his weapon.

“Yes!” the boy insisted without hesitation, wringing his hands as if unsure whether to try and stop the bleeding or keep his filthy fingers away from the wound. So John didn’t spare another glance at the four other men, no matter how bizarre the situation seemed to be.

“How long has he been like this?” John asked, crouching down as well, and the boy worried at his lower lip with fearful eyes.

“I don’t know. Ten minutes?” he guessed, but one of the men beside them only scoffed, “More like fifteen centuries.”

“Shut up, Dean,” another chided, so John chose to ignore it, instead concentrating on the wound. It was a clean cut and not deep enough to injure any internal organs, but painful nonetheless, and the blood loss worried him.

From the corner of his eye he noted that both the dark-haired boy and the blond patient were clad in rather unusual clothes, tunics and leather boots, much like the performers he had once seen when he had visited Warwick Castle with his class many years ago.

“What’s your name, mate?” he asked good-naturedly when a groan announced his patient’s consciousness.

“Arthur,” the young man replied before clenching his eyes shut, “Can someone please just get Gaius?”

“We can’t just now,” the boy told his friend again, hand reaching out to take hold of a vambrace-covered wrist, “This one is a physician, too. He’ll heal you.”

“I will,” John promised, “The wound isn’t that bad. I just have to clean it and stich it up.”

“Here,” suddenly a giant of a man bent down and presented John with a first aid kit, “Everything you need is in there.”

“Thanks,” John nodded, set aside his gun and took the kit. Then he flipped open the lid, pulling a pair of rubber-gloves from their wrapping and slipping them onto his hands before he got to work.

“So what’s going on here?” he wanted to know, “Because this sure as hell isn’t normal.”

There was a bit of shuffling coming from the men and then the one John remembered as Dean asked, “Who wants to break the news?”

“What news?” John demanded when no answer was forthcoming, “I’m inside of a friggin’ phone box that landed inside of my flat and that is about the size of a Hilton suite, there is a poor chap bleeding all over the floor, I have seen at least two shotguns, a knife, a dagger and an honest to God sword in your possession, I know not a single one of you dickheads and now you expect me to just play along without a single clue of what’s happening. Cheers, but once I’m finished here I might just shoot the rest of you.”

There was a bit of stunned silence, ended by an uncomfortable cough.

“I like him,” Dean declared then, sounding not at all intimidated, but actually rather amused, which was not exactly what John had been aiming for and angrily he tossed aside the antiseptic tissue with which he had cleaned the wound, before taking up the needle in order to stich Arthur up.

“That’s not quite correct,” a quiet, deep voice said, apparently somewhat hesitant, “You know one of us. You know me.”

A shuddering breath escaped John and his hand trembled before he closed his eyes for a long moment and then forced his limbs to cooperate, placing his needle against Arthur’s skin and carefully guiding it through the flesh. Arthur let out a pained groan but held completely still.

“Sherlock?” John asked, keeping his eyes on the task at hand because the alternative was picking up his gun and shooting someone in the head.

There was another uncertain silence, then-

“Yes,” Sherlock answered, “Hello, John.”

“So, which one is it?” John mused flippantly, “A, b or c?”

“… I don’t understand,” Sherlock said and wasn’t that a funny thing to hear from that mouth?

“A) I’ve completely snapped,” John offered the possibility that he had considered much too often over the past few months, “B) You have miraculously returned from the dead. Or c).”

And that was the one that was most likely, the one that hurt and left him breathless with pain, “You were never dead in the first place.”

“C),” Sherlock replied, “With a dash of b), I reckon.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” John watched as his hands sewed shut the hole on Arthur’s body, just like he wanted to mend the tear in his own chest.

“The supernatural is real,” Dean piqued up, sounding slightly exasperated, “From the monsters under your bed-kind to selling your sells to the devil and angels having civil war because they want daddy to play favorites. That enough of b) for you?”

John swallowed hard. “And at first Sherlock Holmes didn’t even believe in giant, black hounds?” he contemplated, “Sucks to have your life turned upside down, doesn’t it?”

“John,” Sherlock sighed, but the doctor cut him off, “Don’t _John_ me while I have sharp objects and firearms at my disposal. This time you might not survive this easily.”

“Correction,” Dean chuckled in response, “I _really_ like him.”

“Could we please postpone this conversation and keep the king from dying here?” the dark-haired boy interfered frantically, “He’s kind of, you know, important and stuff!”

“Merlin, calm down,” Arthur told him through clenched teeth and John’s brain did some sort of complicated, involuntary somersault as he connected the dots. Merlin and King Arthur. Now, if that wasn’t fun. Only that Merlin didn’t look old enough to shave yet and Arthur was bleeding out like a pig under John’s fingers. Well, admittedly, that was a bit of an exaggeration. By now he had staunched the bleeding and the stiches looked fine. He would have to disinfect the wound once more, wash off all the blood, apply some sort of healing salve and wrap it in bandages or at least a band-aid.

The gash was apparently the worst of the injuries, though Arthur’s face, neck and fingers were covered in the same long, thin paper cuts that made Merlin look as if he had been attacked by a swarm of angry origami cranes.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” John asked, eyes searching for tell-tale sighs such as awkwardly held limbs or more bloodstains, but Arthur shook his head , “Sprained my ankle, but it’s not that bad. Ask Merlin, though. He hit his head and was unconscious for a little while.”

“Are you feeling dizzy or nauseous, seeing any black spots?” John asked, glancing up at Merlin who looked pale but otherwise alright.

“A bit dizzy, but that might just be the exhaustion,” Merlin answered meekly, “It’s been a long day.”

“Looks like it,” John grunted, doing his best to clean the general area of Arthur’s wound, “Okay, I need some hot water and some sort of salve, maybe-“

“Aloe Vera,” Merlin cut in, nodding quickly, “It’ll help mend the skin. Or possibly calendula.”

“Uh,” John blinked, unsure what to make of this, “You’re very into herbs, aren’t you?”

 But Merlin only gave him a blank look, “What would you use instead?”

“Right,” John reminded himself. Ancient wizard and all that. Probably didn’t have a Bayer factory at his disposal.

“Here, I always have some with me,” Merlin said and quickly dug into one of the leather bags that was lying behind him, “It’s a good thing Gaius always prepares me for such situations.”

“Then why didn’t you treat me yourself?” Arthur complained with a hard stare and Merlin grimaced down at him.

“Because I don’t have all of my supplies with me,” he scoffed while skillfully wrapping a piece of linen around his right hand that had a deep gash along the palm which John had not even noticed,  “Not to mention that I’m still wrapping my head around the matter that we were dragged into some sort of mysterious, magical box!”

Yes, John couldn’t help but agree on that one, but he silently uncapped the clay jar Merlin had offered him with a small smile.

“Here’s hot water,” the giant from before set down a bowl next to him and John quickly dipped the cloth into it, wringing it out and carefully cleaning Arthur’s chest and stomach of the smudged blood.

“So I’m not the only one who’s feeling slightly out of his depth here?” he asked, “Because if this is really effing King Arthur, then there are only two explanations I can come up with. Magic or time-travel.”

“Magic,” Arthur replied in the same moment Sherlock said “Time-travel” while the giant mused, “A bit of both, probably.”

“Wrong,” Sherlock pointed out like he had always been so fond of doing, “There was no kind of summoning or witching involved in the matter. Judging by their clothes, hair and teeth Sam and Dean are from the 21st century, just like John and me, while Arthur and Merlin were logically taken form the late fifth or early sixth century. However, considering that we are standing in an actual time-machine, it becomes obvious that we are dealing with advanced technology instead of a few spells.”

“Correct on all accounts,” the shortest men of the group, a rather plain looking guy with a bowtie and surprisingly intense eyes stepped forward, speaking for the first time, “Brilliant deduction, Sherlock, though obviously I didn’t expect anything less from you.”

Arthur struggled to sit up on the floor and Merlin hurried to prop him up from behind, so John didn’t bother to interfere and advise them that taking it easy for a while would be best with their wounds, because personal experience reminded him of the fact that eccentric men didn’t take well to being told what they should do. With a small sigh he turned away and stood up, his knees popping miserably in the process.

Looking up he came face to face with Sherlock who only stood a few inches in front of him. It was such a familiar situation and yet it had been so long that John was overcome by a startlingly yearning ache. God. Had it really been this long?

For a moment he wondered how he was supposed to react. Should he punch Sherlock? Embrace him? Yell, smile, shrug? But then he took a closer look and hesitated.

Sherlock’s face was tan with a handful of freckles strewn across the bridge of his nose, but unpleasantly haggard, his cheekbones sharper than ever, and there were hard lines around his mouth along with one deep furrow on his brow as if he had been frowning non-stop. His hair was short around the edges, curls falling down into his forehead, but the color was off, some bad shade between bleached blonde and ginger. Then John’s gaze fell above Sherlock’s upper lip. The shorter man cocked an eyebrow.

“Moustache, Sherlock? Really?” he asked and the detective’s eyes narrowed marginally, “Shut up.”

And then a small smile spread across John’s face, Sherlock following only a split second later, until they were full-out grinning at each other.

“I was undercover,” Sherlock defended himself, smoothing his thumb and forefinger along the pitiful excuse of a moustache, “I was told it makes me look sophisticated.”

“It makes you look like a rapist,” John answered, “And what’s up with the hair-“

“Hey hey hey,” the chap named Dean stepped in, lifting his hands in some sort of placating gesture, “Sorry to interrupt the lover’s reunion, but what the hell is even going on here?”

“Yes, I’d like to ask the same question,” Arthur piped up with a very kingly tone, “Who is responsible for this- whatever it is?”

“That would be me,” the man with the bowtie explained, an amused twinkle in his eye, “I am the Doctor.”

“Doctor who?” the giant asked, just when Dean said, “I would have preferred Doctor Sexy.”

“I am a Time Lord,” the Doctor answered simply, “And this is my TARDIS. Time and relative dimensions in space.”

“Time Lord?” the giant seemed unconvinced, “What’s that supposed to be?”

“Sounds like something from a cheap British scifi series,” Dean huffed and eyed the Doctor warily, “Are you even human? From the future maybe?”

“I was born on the planet of Gallifrey,” the Doctor replied with a melancholic smile and John blinked. So time-travel, wizards, monsters, angels _and_ aliens? And Mrs. Hudson was probably a witch or what?

“A planet?” Merlin’s eyes widened, his voice an octave too high, “You are from a different planet?”

“Yeah right, “Dean snorted, “The last time we were confronted with aliens they turned out to be wicked fairies, so no, we don’t quite believe that.”

John stared at him, “You tell me everything supernatural is real and then you go and say aliens don’t exist? Really, from a guy who knows next to nothing on the subject I’d say non-human life in the rest of the universe sounds a lot more likely than the other stuff that you claim is going on on earth.”

“He’s got a point,” the giant admitted, but Dean only threw him a dark look, “Shut up, Sam.”

“Let’s just assume that you are speaking the truth,” Arthur said and for a guy who was sitting on the ground and obviously in pain he sure knew how to sound commanding, “That still doesn’t answer my question. I am grateful that you saved me and my servant, but what exactly do you want and how did you find us?”

“Well, how about we start with a short introduction?” the Doctor offered, tilting his head to the side, “So that we all know what to make of each other, yes? Good? Good. As I already said, I am the Doctor and yes, I am a time-traveling alien. But – just like all of you – I view myself as a savior of the world.”

“You are the one who has managed to elude the secret service for several years now,” Sherlock noted with a hint of amusement, obviously mocking Mycroft for his seeming incompetence, but the Doctor only nodded.

“Yes, indeed. I spoke with your brother less than an hour ago,” he said, “I believe he informed you that I would come to pick you up? Though I guess he was a tad bit bamboozled when I crash-landed in his bedroom.”

“He spoke of a most welcome ally,” Sherlock noted and then his gaze flittered over to Merlin, “And for once I am inclined to trust his judgment.”

 “Great,” the Doctor gave him a full-fledged grin, “Moving on. Sam and Dean, would you like to continue?”

“What’s this? Alcoholics Anonymous?” Dean rolled his eyes, but conceded, “Hi, I am Dean Winchester, this is my younger brother Sam. We hunt demons and other evil shit.”

“Uhm, hi,” Sam gave an uncertain wave, “We’re from the US, in case you hadn’t figured that out yet?”

“US?” Arthur repeated under his breath, “Never heard of it.”

“Splendid,” the Doctor said enthusiastically, “Sherlock and John?”

“Yes,” Sherlock pulled himself up to his full height and put on his favorite poncy expression, “My name is Sherlock Holmes. I am the only consulting detective in the world. This is my colleague and friend Doctor John Watson.”

Despite himself John felt his chest swell a bit under the implied praise and affection in those words, and he squared his shoulders, matching Sherlock’s self-confident stance.

“We hunt murderers. Mostly,” John added and then sent a questioning look at Sherlock, “Used to, at least.”

“Wait, _you_ ’re Sherlock Holmes?” Sam’s eyes widened in realization, suddenly looking really excited, “I read about you on the internet. I thought you were dead.”

Sherlock gave a small, self-satisfied smirk, “And I read about you in the FBI’s Most Wanted lists that you and your brother are dangerous serial killers and already dead ten times over. But considering that you are hunters and deeply involved with the supernatural, I’d say that the reports of your death were an exaggeration.”

“Oh, so now he’s quoting Twain,” Dean rolled his eyes, “But sorry to disappoint you. Half of the time we really were dead in one way or the other.”

That, at least, shut even Sherlock up.

“Well, I’m sure that Arthur and Merlin have some near-death experiences to share with the class as well,” the Doctor cut in cheerfully, looking over at the two men who seemed to be the youngest in the group.

Arthur frowned slightly, but nodded, “I am Arthur Pendragon, King of Camelot. But it would seem that you already knew that. With me is Merlin, my manservant.”

“Manservant?” Dean repeated, “Isn’t he supposed to be like, you know, your courtsc-“

“Shh!” Sam hissed and stepped on his brother’s foot who immediately grimaced.

“I don’t think they know yet,” Sam said emphatically, “Don’t give it away.”

“Oh, right, that reminds me,” the Doctor exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air and turning to the other men, “You already know most of what has happened in the centuries between your own time and that of Merlin’s and Arthur’s. You know the legend, even if it has changed considerably over the years. But whatever you do, don’t spoil their endings. People do strange things when they think they have to avoid their own fate.”

Dean snorted and exchanged a meaningful glance with his brother but neither said anything. John figured that they knew what trying to escape your fate went like.

“There’s something else you’re not telling us,” Arthur eyed them suspiciously, “What are you trying to keep secret?”

“You shouldn’t be asking _us_ that question,” Dean muttered and while John hadn’t paid attention before he now noticed the downright worried and guilt-ridden expression on Merlin’s pale face.

Arthur’s glare zoned in on Dean and a moment later he was struggling to his feet, declining his servant’s offer for help, instead pulling his impressive sword from its sheath and protectively holding it in front of him, the other arm lifted to shield a now confused Merlin.

“If you dare and try to harm him, then you will have to answer to me first,” he growled, “I don’t care what you are, hunter or witchfinder or whatever you may call yourself, but in my kingdom you will bow to my rule and not threaten my friends.”

For a moment everyone seemed dumbfounded. Dean’s gaze kept flittering between Arthur’s face and Arthur’s blade, Sam took a step forward, probably to defend his brother, the Doctor tensing as well in anticipation of a fight. Only Sherlock seemed relaxed, so while John was completely on alert he felt surprisingly at ease as well.

“Uh, Arthur,” Merlin murmured nervously, his hand hovering in the air as if uncertain whether to place it on his king’s shoulder, “What are you-“

“Oh, you stupid boy, don’t you see?” Sherlock uncrossed his arms to make an abrupt wavy motion with his hand, “He already knows.”

Merlin swallowed visibly, “Knows… knows what? Arthur?”

Arthur took one more moment to try and stare Dean down before he made a point of showily sheathing Excalibur again, wincing only slightly as he did so. Then he slowly turned around to face his companion.

“He means,” he answered calmly, his gaze searching Merlin’s, “That I already know about your magic.”

Merlin made a strangled sound, something between a dying cow and an asthmatic fit. His blue eyes were wide and full of fear, but Arthur only regarded him with none of the hostility he had displayed in front of Dean just seconds ago.

“I’m afraid I have to agree with Sherlock,” he said instead with a smile, “You _are_ stupid.”

Merlin wheezed again. “You knew!” he cried out, “You knew all along!”

“Well, not all along,” Arthur admitted humbly, “But little by little I did figure it out. Because I am not nearly as block-headed as you.”

“And I thought I was risking my neck. I thought I was risking your _trust,”_ Merlin was shaking his head furiously, “I felt like I was betraying you this whole time.”

“To be honest, you _were_ risking your neck. At least while my father was still alive,” Arthur reminded him, placing a reassuring hand on Merlin’s slumped shoulder, and then added, “I understand why you did it. And I do not blame you. But promise me that you will never lie to me again.”

Hesitantly Merlin offered him a teasing smile, “Not even when you ask me whether I scrubbed the floor and I have to make up an excuse because I was busy saving your royal backside again?”

“Not even then,” Arthur answered mock-seriously, “Especially not then. One day you will have to tell me of each and every time you saved me – and probably the whole kingdom.”

“Isn’t this wonderful?” the Doctor was smiling brightly, “Some of the greatest heroes of Earth’s history, all gathered in one place, these homeless, tempest-tost, throttled by fate and chance, connected by their daddy issues and compulsion for self-sacrificing deeds-“

“Yeah yeah!” Dean cut in with a stormy face, “Save your Freudian Statue of Liberty speech for later. Cause I smell something fishy when I try to think of a reason what us _heroes_ might be needed for.”

“Okay then,” the Doctor seemed unperturbed, “You have been chosen-“

Dean groaned, finally making the Doctor throw him an exasperated look, “What now?”

“I’m seriously getting tired of the constant ‘you are chosen’, ‘you are destined’ and ‘it has been foretold’, all those prophecies and all that shit. It’s getting old.”

“Hear hear,” Merlin muttered under his breath.

“I mean, no offense, man, but a psychic called me this morning to tell me something about a blue box and then you pick us up in your alleged space ship, spew us out sometime in the Dark Ages, tell us to please be so kind and save King Arthur and his sorcerer, and what they heck do you take us for, some well-trained collies?” Dean ranted, gesticulating wildly.

“I admit that I have to agree with him,” Arthur said grudgingly, “If I understand correctly then you are – as insane as that sounds – from sometime very far in the future. I do not see how any of your business is connected to ours.”

“But it might be,” Sherlock pointed out, but John only felt immensely relieved that for once he wasn’t the only one who wasn’t getting it, because everyone but the Doctor turned to throw him questioning looks.

“Whatever that woman – I believe it was your sister Morgana LeFay – was trying to summon back there in that valley…,” Sherlock trailed off for a second, probably thinking back to whatever it was that he had witnessed, “The Doctor seems to believe it is somehow linked to us. To all of us. A common evil. A common threat.”

“Couldn’t have said it better,” the Doctor nodded importantly, “I am here to bring you together and to prepare you for your fight.”

“So what is this,” Dean frowned, “The fellowship of the ring?”

“What is he talking about?” Merlin whispered, throwing a sidelong glance at Arthur who merely shrugged, obviously feeling left out of the loop as well.

 “Oh God,” Dean buried his face in his hands, “They are just like Cas.”

“Cas?” John asked, frowning, “Don’t tell me you picked up another poor sod from the last millennium?”

Dean let out a barking laugh, “Don’t worry. No, Cas – Castiel, that is – is actually an angel of the Lord.”

He paused for a moment, looking vaguely surprised.

“Man,” he blinked, “I get why he keeps repeating that. Saying it makes you feel badass.”

“I don’t even know what an angel is,” Merlin whispered, just when Sherlock snorted, “Oh please, you don’t believe that yourself.”

“What, believe in angels?” Dean cocked an eyebrow, “Yeah, I said the same – before Cas raised me from hell.”

Sherlock’s eyes widened, “You’ve been to hell? So you’ve made a deal with a crossroad’s demon?”

“Hey, we all have some skeletons in the closet and dead bodies in the backyard,” Dean shrugged and then added, “Which is quite a feat since I own neither a backyard nor a closet.”

“Don’t mind him,” Sam said, “He’s feeling particularly funny lately. Wait till he burns through all his knock knock and blondes jokes.”

“Stop ignoring my question!” Sherlock threw his hands in the air, “Angels? Honest-to-God angels?”

“Well, honest-to-God is an interesting choice of words to describe them,” Sam mused carefully, “Not all of them are particularly loyal. Or overly well-meaning when it comes to the human race or Earth in general. They’ve banged up quite some shit down here.”  
“But Cas is different,” Dean cut in, “He is a bit of a weirdo, but a good friend. Unlike his douche brothers.”

John noticed how Sherlock was about to object again and that was when he felt his patience run out.

“Enough now!” he cut them off with his best army voice, “Do you even notice how you are turning in a circle. You ask questions and then either refuse to believe the answer or don’t even wait to listen to the complete version. You are driving me nuts!”

“Thank you, Doctor,” the Doctor said and John gave him a short nod, “You’re welcome, Doctor.”

An awkward silence descended upon them, until Sam cleared his throat.

“So to put us all on common ground,” he began hesitantly, “What exactly happened there in the clearing? Uhm, Morgana was trying to summon something, that much was obvious. But did she say what it was or for what purpose?”

“She kept referring to _Him_ ,” Merlin answered, looking slightly shaken at the memory, “She didn’t mention any name, though. But she… she said that He needed my body.”

“Typical possession,” Dean crossed his arms, nodding to himself, “Some kind of demon, probably.”

“But wouldn’t a demon just have possessed him?” Sam reminded him.

“Then what was the summoning for?” Dean cocked an eyebrow at his brother, “What else would it have been?”

“An angel.”

“An angel that waits for a witch to summon him so he can possess a wizard?” Dean was obviously not convinced, “Sounds like quite some effort.”

“Remember what schemes Zachariah came up with so Michael could get his hands on you?” Sam pointed out, “If Merlin is a vessel, a unique vessel, than this angel – whoever it is – will be rather persistent.”

“That still doesn’t explain the summoning,” Dean shot back, “Angels can move freely in our world.”

“Except for Lucifer. And Michael. Who are still in the Cage,” Sam was swallowing harshly when he said that, “Or angels like Cas and Anna when their superiors thought they were running wild.”

“Fuck,” the corners of Dean’s mouth turned downwards, “I thought we had left the angel business behind us.”

Sam snorted, “You wish.”

John’s mind was whirring. He wasn’t stupid. He was actually quite smart, even if that was easy to forget in the presence of Sherlock Holmes. But he had always been able to follow the detective’s reasoning once he elaborated his deductions. With Sam and Dean… not so much.

To be fair, John had absolutely no idea how to deal with all these revelations regarding the supernatural, so he had to adjust to those surprising fact.

So. Angels. Lucifer equals the devil, that much he knew. And apparently angels could take a hold of humans, for whatever reason, but only of certain ones. And this specific angel wanted Merlin.

“I’ve been possessed before,” Merlin suddenly blurted out and everyone turned to him; Arthur’s eyes were especially wide.

“When?” the king asked.

“Uh, remember Cornelius Sigan?” Merlin asked, his face turning apologetic, “Yeah, he was freed from that crystal in which he had been caught.”

“Ghost possession?” Sam muttered and Dean nodded, “Sounds like it.”

“I managed to fight him down,” Merlin hurried to say at Arthur’s shocked expression, “He had no power over me.”

Dean let out a low whistle, “Last human I remember who managed to fight a possession was Bobby. Not bad, kiddo.”

Merlin threw him a subdued glare. “This was different,” he insisted, “This… this thing Morgana was summoning… I could feel its presence. The door between the two world was not even open yet, but it was already invading my senses. Stunning me. Numbing me. I have come across many powerful beings, but this was something beyond my imagination.”

The sorcerer was shivering visibly and Arthur put a calming hand on his shoulder.

“I will not let any harm befall you,” the young king promised in a manner that was not only earnest but that made everyone in the room believe him, “You know Morgana’s plans. They never work out.”

“Yes. Sorry to cut in,” the Doctor pushed himself into the middle of their strange group, “I’d just like to point out that this isn’t simply about one single person or you lot put together. We are actually talking about the fate of world here. Possibly, yes possible even the fate of the entire universe. I’m not sure whether you are all quite aware of that weight that now rests on your shoulders. But no pressure.”

John had fought in the war. He knew that very few battles were decided by decided by one man alone. Why would this be any different? He could feel his stomach clenching with anxiety.

“John, stop gnashing your teeth,” Sherlock told him quietly and John’s jaws ground to a halt.

“Sorry?” he pressed out, forcing himself to stay calm.

“I know that this is a lot to take it,” Sherlock admitted, “But we are in this together.”

A unexpected ball of rage exploded in John’s chest.

“In this together?” he repeated in disbelief, turning on the taller man, “In this together? Are you kidding me?”

“No fighting, please”, the Doctor interjected, but John seriously didn’t give a damn, staring up at Sherlock with fire in his eyes.

“Do you even know what day it is?” he snarled accusingly. Sherlock, however, just blinked without any hint of understanding.

“Judging by his tone I’d guess either birthday or anniversary,” Dean provided helpfully.

“Non-sense,” Sherlock dismissed it with a wave of his hand, “The only date John would be sentimental enough to find note-worthy is the day that we met and that was the 29th of January 2010.”

“Exactly!” John snapped and yes, admittedly he probably did sound like a wife who direly lacked a bouquet of red roses.

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed. “It’s the 5th of July,” he pointed out and then added, “2012.”

“No,” John shook his head stubbornly, “It’s January 2013. We met three years ago.”

“Uh, sorry, buddy,” Sam interrupted hesitantly, “He’s right. It is the 5th of July.”

“What are they talking about?” Merlin whispered, never taking his eyes of the arguing men, but Arthur only shrugged, “Apparently some sort of calendar system. No idea which, though.”

John ignored them all in favor of his righteous anger, “So you’re telling me that I did not live through the past six months and twenty-four days? Alone?”

“Whoops,” the Doctor laughed nervously, “My mistake. I might have messed up the timeline a bit. Picked up Sherlock and Sam and Dean on the same day, went back a couple of centuries to fetch Merlin and Arthur got a bit confused with a fitting date to encounter John. I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, but still,” Dean made a face at Sherlock, “You knowingly made him believe that you were dead for over a year? Sorry, man, but that is a Grade A kind of shitty. I mean, we’ve already grown used to all this revival stuff, but he probably expected you to have died and stay dead, right?”

“Dean, cut it out,” Sam elbowed him in the ribs, “No need to rub it in. And if you remember, I did the same to you.”

“Yeah, but you had no soul, man. What kind of excuse does he have?”

John did not care what they were saying. John did not care what they had gone through. He only knew his own grief, the emptiness that he had been forced to grow used to. The emptiness which Sherlock expected him to simply shake off now as if were made of raindrops and nothing more. How could he go back to being part of something that had died when Sherlock threw himself down a building?

But time and time again this man, whom had chosen him as his best friend, managed to surprise him. And now he did it again.

“I didn’t want to endanger John,” Sherlock answered Dean’s reproval and surprisingly his eyes were downcast, “Bombs and guns and assassins are one thing, but to thrust him into this world, to expose him to demons and vampires and whatever is out to get each and every man that ever hunted. I didn’t dare.”

And just like that John had to blink hard. It was a curious mixture of tears and disbelief because Sherlock sounded so forlorn, so dejected that it was easy to imagine him as the small, pouting child that Mycroft had mentioned so often over a cup of tea before viciously biting into one of Mrs. Hudson’s/Tesco’s biscuits. All his ire dissipated and left him feeling breathless as if he had just being running through the night, just without the adrenaline, without the exhaustion, without the constant fear.

“It’s okay,” he found himself saying and the moment he heard the words with his own ears he knew that they were the truth, “At least you returned now.”

Sherlock let out a strange breathy sound, like a sigh and a huff and a moment of speechlessness, but then looked up and his eyes were as grey as iron once more and John felt comfortable in his skin again.

“Anyway,” Sherlock said, as if had not given up his life to save his friends, “Can we now get on with the important bit?”

But no one said anything.

“Sammy, I love you,” Dean said seriously into the awkward silence and Sam blinked in confusion.

“Why are you saying that all of a sudden?” he asked suspiciously, but his brother only shrugged, “I don’t know, it seems like it’s the Day of Sappy Conciliation between Adult Men, so I thought I might just join in.”

“That’s the spirit,” the Doctor said cheerfully, “It is of utmost importance that we all get along, after all we will be spending a lot of time with each other.”

“Will we?” Arthur asked suspiciously, “Because I’ve got a kingdom to run as you should know.”

“You’ve got a planet to save,” the Doctor corrected, “And you kingdom happens to be part of that planet. You might want to reconsider your priorities.”

“Then where do with start?” Dean intervened, “You say it’s all connected to every single one of us, but I don’t really see that yet. In my eyes we are just a ragtag gang of mediocre superheroes with Merlin being the only one who even has any superpowers to speak of. Low budget Avengers Assemble or what?”

“Well, Robert Downey jn was busy filming his new movie,” the Doctor sent him a seething look, “Another one with Jude Law.”

Dean’s eyes lit up, “The detective one set Victorian London?”

Sam sighed, “You have the attention span of a gold fish.”

“What?” Dean asked.

“My point exactly.”

“Anyway,” the Doctor huffed, gleefully rubbing his palms, “Yes, you are all connected to each other. This is one big adventure, one single story that weaves it way through time and space. Ooh, I love it.”

“Then what will we do?” Merlin asked, obviously very anxious to face this threat that was probably planning to confront him especially either way.

“We will go back to where all your histories entwine,” the Doctor announced proudly, clapping his hands once, “We will go to Winchester.”

**~o0o~**

**Next Stop: Winchester, England**

**~o0o~**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter was giving me a headache. I kept turning around in circles and repeating stuff. I’m still not quite happy with it, but as this is one massive confrontation of John being thrust into this wholly new world it will just have to do. Obviously quite a bit of Johnlock bromance, but the Merthur/Revelation stuff will get some more screen time later on.   
> You probably have noticed most references in this chapter, most notably the one about RDJ who played Tony Stark in “Ironman” and “The Avengers” but also the Holmes to Jude Law’s Watson. Couldn’t let this one pass. ^^


	7. The Sussex Vampires (Part I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, you will see soon enough,” the Doctor grinned mischievously, “Winchester is where your pasts and futures, where all your lives are connected. Basically, Winchester is the new Rome.”

 

**Chapter 6 – The Wessex Vampires**

“ _You can't escape the wrath of my heart_  
Beating to your funeral song (You're so alone)  
All faith is lost for hell regained  
And love dust in the hands of shame (Just be brave)”

 

 **Winchester, England, 6** **th** **July 2012**

 

“Winchester,” Sam echoed when everyone else failed to show any kind of reaction, “As in, a city?”

“Winchester, Wessex, England, the United Kingdom-“ the Doctor began to specify, but Dean cut him off, “Europe, Planet Earth, the Solar System. Yes, I think we got it.”

“So, what’s so special about Winchester?” Sam asked curiously, “I mean, apart from us being called Winchester as well.”

“Oh, you will see soon enough,” the Doctor grinned mischievously, “Winchester is where your pasts and futures, where all your lives are connected. Basically, Winchester is the new Rome.”

Sam glanced around between the other men in the control room of the TARDIS; Merlin and Arthur seemed as if they felt just as misplaced as before, but John was blinking, obviously thinking about that sudden revelation, while a short frown passed over Sherlock’s face before it morphed into a slow, pleased smile. Alright, so the detective had already worked out what the Doctor was playing at, or at least part of it.

Sam resisted the urge to pout. If Winchester was located in England, then the others had definitely a home field advantage. The only time he had even been to Europe was a week-long vacation in France with Jessica and the trip to Scotland to find Crowley’s bones – the former had been spent in the hotel, mostly eating croissants and fucking like bunnies, the latter with some illegal grave-digging. So his first-hand experience was definitely a bit limited.

“And what exactly will we be doing there?” Arthur asked warily, “It is not my intention to offend you, but I will have to return to my kingdom, to my _time_ as soon as possible. The last thing my people saw of me was how I was dragged into a portal while trying to save my manservant. They must be worried about us.”

“That won’t be a problem,” the Doctor reassured him, “That’s the beauty of time-travel. I can bring you back moments after you disappeared. They won’t even know for how long you were actually gone.”

“So, you are saying we could travel with you for years and no one would know the difference once we returned?” Merlin asked incredulous. Sam found the contrast between the expected wizened wizard and this naïve boy strangely endearing.

“Basically, yes,” the Doctor nodded, “You would still age, of course, so that would probably give it away, but I’ve been known to spend months traveling with certain companions before setting them right back where I first picked them up.”

“So there are no dangers involved at all?” Sherlock wanted to know, a hint of doubt in his eyes, “Say, if the TARDIS were to be damaged.”

The Doctor squirmed a bit. “Well, there is always a fair bit of danger involved when joining me on an adventure,” he answered at length, “But then, it would be much of an adventure at all if it wasn’t at least a tiny bit risky.”

Admittedly, Sam couldn’t argue with that. Not in his line of work. Though he was pretty sure that he would prefer to die in his own timeline instead of 500 BC or something. Sentimentality and whatnot.

Judging by what they had saved Merlin and Arthur from, these two weren’t strangers to life-threatening situations either. And according to John’s blog (which Sam had not been loyally following for almost eighteen months) the man had served in the army and was thus used to endangering himself; and Sherlock- Well, Sam had only just personally met the man, but Sherlock was Sherlock and that seemed to be enough of an explanation.

“And what, exactly, will we be doing in Winchester?” Dean demanded roughly, “Is this gonna be some kind of treasure hunt or what?”

“No quite,” the Doctor explained, “We will visit an old friend of mine. Her name is Alice Ferguson and she is a lovely woman.”

“Ferguson?” Sherlock echoed, suddenly even more alert than before, “Professor Alice Ferguson?”

The Doctor gave a small, pleased smile, “But naturally you already know her, Sherlock, don’t you.”

“Of course I do,” Sherlock huffed, “She was the one who encouraged me to become a consulting detective.”

At that John turned to give his friend a surprised look, “She did?”

“Well, obviously she didn’t do it directly,” Sherlock huffed, “I invented that occupation. She rather told me something along the lines of ‘Follow your dreams’, but I hadn’t wanted to repeat that.”

“Oh. Right,” John nodded, “So who is she? Not a girlfriend, I’m guessing.”

“My former history teacher,” Sherlock answered, “Pretty much the only capable person among the whole staff at that school.”

“Your school…” John trailed off and his widened, before he shook his head with a chuckle, “Winchester College. I should have guessed. You posh git.”

“Mommy was always very insistent about mine and Mycroft’s education,” Sherlock said petulantly.

Next to himself Sam could hear the tell-tale sound of Dean suppressing a burst of laughter at witnessing a grown man actually say ‘mommy’, but luckily no one else was able to translate the variety of his brother’s grunts and snorts into common English.

“Insistent meaning that she paid thousands of pounds each semester,” John pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

“Both Mycroft and I had stipendiums,” Sherlock said mildly, “Of course, you were still expected to pay at least half of the usual fees, but that is not important here. What would Professor Ferguson know about whatever we are looking for? Is she a hunter?”

“You will see,” the Doctor promised, “For now I advise you to hold on tightly so I can safely direct the TARDIS to our destination.”

Sherlock, Sam, Dean, Merlin and Arthur – who had all already experienced at least one hell of a ride in the time-machine, all quickly grabbed whatever railing or pillar was within arm’s reach, but John seemed a little lost, until Sherlock tugged at his sleeve and warned, “When he says ‘hold on tightly’, it’s not just a set phrase.”

The Doctor stepped towards the console, pressed several buttons (seemingly at random), tapped his fingers across the keys and then pushed up some sort of hand gear. The low grumbling from before started up again, growing louder and louder, the Tardis coming to life, the pillar thrumming beneath Sam’s palms as if the whole space ship or time machine had an actual spirit. And maybe it did. If Dean insisted that the Impala was more than just a machine, then the Tardis definitely was as well.

Sam glanced around. Dean had grabbed hold of another pillar across from him, but the others were clinging to the railings. Arthur especially looked a bit green, but that might have been because of the blood loss. John, though, squared his jaw and looked grim, but on alert. For a split second Sam was painfully reminded of his father. John Winchester had often worn the very same expression whenever he was mentally preparing himself for something unpredictable. Maybe it was a military thing.

A stomach-turning ride later it was over. Sam slipped his – admittedly somewhat sweaty palms – of the smooth surface of the pillar and wiped them off on his jeans, awkwardly taking a step backwards. Another quick look around assured him that everyone was still alive and that Arthur had not decided to spew his kingly guts.

“Et voilà,” the Doctor put on a huge smile and made a sweeping gesture towards the door, “Winchester!”

Sherlock immediately started towards the exit, John on his heels, and Sam was already intent to follow when his mind caught up with him and reminded him of the fact that he did not simply follow people whom he had just met.

Out of the two of them Dean was the paranoid bastard, the one who wouldn’t trust strangers as far as he could spit. Dean had always trusted their father’s judgment when it came to other hunters, but those they had known were all dead. The only one who had actually gained his respect and friendship was Cas and, boy, if that hadn’t gotten them some trouble as well. Be as it may, his big brother’s suspicion had often saved his life, so Sam had learned to ask his opinion first. And Dean still stood rooted to the spot, arms cross and obviously waiting for more than ‘Et voilà Winchester’.

Surprisingly enough, though, it was the Doctor himself who then stopped the detective duo from exiting the Tardis.

“Halt!” he called out, actually making Sherlock stop so suddenly that John almost bumped into him.

“Just a tiny thing,” the timelord pointed out, “We have to disguise ourselves first.”

Oh man. Time travel and disguises, that always went well. Sam still had a very vivid memory of Dean wearing a blanket the last time around.

“Do you want us to hide our faces?” Merlin asked, “Do you have hooded cloaks for us?”

He nervously glanced at Arthur. Maybe he knew some sort of spell for such an occasion but was still wary of using magic around his king.

“Not quite,” the Doctor said apologetically, “Thing is, people might still recognize Sherlock. And possibly even Sam and Dean, too, though that’s much more unlikely. They have a bounty on their hands and Sherlock is supposedly dead.”

He took a deep breath, “So I really love your clothes, they are very medieval-y. Though, not really medieval, more Dark Ages. Sounds like a sub-category of Heavy Metal, does it not? _Will_ actually be a branch cult of the Beaver Fever, but we’re not quite there yet, right? Always a bit difficult to keep the timeline for pop music straight. Always a bit all over the place, isn’t it? Anyway, I love your style, but you’ll stand out like this and we need to be discreet. The TARDIS will provide you with anything you need. And Sherlock, by all that is holy, get rid of that moustache.”

“If I may,” Arthur cut in, “Is there any way we can delay our quest and rest for the night? Merlin and I have been riding all day long. Not to mention that getting abducted and fighting possessed men is rather exhausting as well.”

“Same here,” Sam backed him up, realizing that he had been up for about eighteen hours, most of which had been spent running around, “I wouldn’t mind catching some sleep.”

“How could you sleep at a time like this?” Sherlock seemed personally offended, “Don’t you want to know what we are going to find? Even John’ still wide awake and alert.”

John rolled his eyes, “Yes, because it seems that, unlike the rest of you lot, I was actually picked early in the morning. I basically just got up.”

“Oh,” Sherlock deflated a bit, but the Doctor didn’t seem to mind the overall lack of energy the group was displaying.

“The Tardis has plenty enough space for everyone,” he declared proudly, “And a swimming pool. Who would like a bunk bed?”

Sam didn’t really care. As long as he had a flat surface to crash on, he was content. . He glanced over his brother because he thought he was likely to object, but Dean just gave him a curt nod. So for once they agreed on something.

“Well, then,” the Doctor clapped once, twice and then pointed them into the direction of an archway, “If you go straight ahead and then left, the next three rooms will be a your free disposal. I’m assuming you’ll want to pair off. Amy and Rory always liked to share. Though for some reason they did not like the bunk bed.”

Sam was not going to comment on how Amy and Rory sounded like they had an actually rather reasonable dislike towards bunk bed. Instead he rough-gently nudged his shoulder into Dean’s, nodding towards where Merlin was hovering over a still pale but very much composed Arthur who was striding towards the hallway the Doctor had indicated.

“I wish you all a good night’s sleep,” the king announced, slightly turning towards them, “I admit that I am still hesitant concerning this quest, but I am willing to put aside my wariness and work by your side in hope of bring it all to a clean end.”

“Yeah, what he said,” Dean nodded apprehensively, “Just a fair warning, though: I sleep with a gun under my pillow and a knife in my hand. So don’t even try to sneak up on us or anything.”

Sam resisted the urge to snort. The last time Dean had fallen asleep with Ruby’s knife in his hand he had nearly poked out his own eye.

“We will definitely have to work on all those bad vibes everyone is giving off,” the Doctor blinked as if such apprehension was a foreign concept to him, “I’m not the one you have to worry about.”

And that was the one thing that had Sam’s insides clenching in dread.

Because as of now they had no idea what exactly they were up against.

 

**~o0o~**

 

The manner in which Sam had been woken by Dean the morning before had not been overly gentle.

The manner in which he was woken on this day was even worse.

Their room in the Tardis was bare and down to essentials, like a motel room, but much cleaner. So just enough to make them feel at home. That was the good thing. The bad thing was that they had a bunk bed. The good thing about that was _that_ Sam had been able to claim the lower one, forcing Dean to climb up the narrow ladder and try to get comfortable. And getting comfortable actually wasn’t even an overly difficult thing because the beds were huge. As in ‘Sam’s feet don’t stick out at the end’-huge. It was wonderful.

As children they had often shared a bed, but whenever they had bunk beds Dean had allowed his little brother to take the upper one. Now Sam was gladly returning the honor and not even feeling bad about it.

It came to bite him back in the ass, however, because Dean’s bed had a railing. Sam’s did not. Which was why, when a groan went through the Tardis as it began to tremble and shake and lunge to the side, Sam was unceremoniously thrown onto the floor while Dean stayed wrapped in his blankets.

“Ouch,” Sam muttered, facedown.

“Haha,” Dean said into his pillow without even looking up, “Payback is a bitch.”

Sam didn’t deign that with an answer but scrambled back to his feet, straightening his trunks before scratching his crotch. As they had not brought their backs with them into the Tardis, they both only had one set of clothes and Sam had decided to sleep in his underwear. However, as he rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes he spied a built in closet across the room. And even better yet: a bathroom.

Ten minutes later found Sam dressed and showered, drying his hair with a fluffy towel. He felt refreshed and well rested. Now all that was missing was proper breakfast. And something to smooth the deep lines across Dean’s forehead.

“Stop frowning,” he told his brother who had gotten up as well and was now sitting on Sam’s bed, chin propped up on his fist.

“This doesn’t feel right, Sammy,” he said, “This doesn’t feel right at all.”

Well, Sam was feeling pretty damn great, “Not quite sure what you’re talking about.”

“This,” Dean made a swiping gesture, “A spaceship? Time-traveling aliens? King Arthur?”

“Well, you didn’t complain when you met Eliot Ness,” Sam reminded him, “Where’s the difference?”

“The difference is that we don’t know these people. This Doctor – and what kind of name is that anyway? – what business does he have with us? How the hell does he even know we exist?”

“Uh, well, why don’t we ask him?” Sam’s stomach rumbled as if intent on changing the subject, “How about you get ready and we’ll hit the kitchen. Assuming that there is a kitchen.”

And to that even Dean couldn’t object.

 

**~o0o~**

 

It turned out that the Tardis did have a kitchen. And a well-filled fridge in front of which Merlin was crouching, marveling at all the food. Arthur, on the other hand, seemed more fascinated by the running water. He stood at the sink and toyed with the tab.

“This must be sorcery,” he muttered, shaking his head.

“It’s not,” Sherlock, who was seated on some futuristic looking barstool informed him, “It’s technology, and not overly difficult at that.”

“The Romans had aqueducts, right?” John told Arthur much more helpfully, “Pipes and tunnels that channeled water?”

Arthur was nodding in understanding, though obviously still very fascinated by this concept of having water whenever you wanted it. Sherlock, however, seemed somewhat annoyed by John’s interference.

“There were also aqueducts in other parts of the world, such as India, South America, Persia and Sri Lanka,” he pointed out, sounding somewhat miffed, “And I’d be very grateful if you’d make me that tea now, John.”

John only rolled his eyes, but did as he was told, starting to rummage through the cupboards in search of the things he needed.

Sam cleared his throat uncertainly and four pairs of eyes turned to where he and Dean were standing in the doorway.

“Morning,” he greeted, putting on a friendly smile, not knowing how to behave. Next to him Dean remained silent which was why Sam was incredibly grateful when both John and Merlin returned his smile and beckoned them to step in.

“The Doctor told us to feel at home,” John said, “And for me that includes breakfast. Tea or coffee, anyone?”

“Coffee would be great,” Sam answered and, when Dean failed to answer as well, he added, “For both of us.”

They seated themselves at the kitchen island, across from Sherlock. Sam noted how everyone else was wearing new clothes. Especially on Merlin’s part that seemed to be a big improvement. Both he and Arthur had chosen blue jeans and tee-shirts, but Sam grinned when he glanced down and saw that they were still wearing their leather boots.

Merlin was selecting a variety of foods from the fridge and when Sam looked closer he realized he didn’t even recognize some of the stuff, for example a dark blue fruit that was speckled with bright yellow dots. He couldn’t even imagine how overwhelmed the sorcerer and his king must have been by all these other unknown things.

“So, you’re Sherlock’s manservant?” Merlin asked John good-naturedly, using a knife to deftly cut a slice out of the fruit.

Sam suppressed a chuckle, but John blinked, looking vaguely offended, “I’m his best friend.”

Merlin nodded as if this were the most natural thing in the world, “Yea, same here. Arthur’s father made me his servant - as a reward because I saved his life, if you can believe it -, and at first he was a prick, but then we became friends. He’s still a prick sometimes, but-“

“Merlin,” Arthur cut in, sending him a dark glare. Merlin ducked his head, blushing.

“But it is such an honor to work for him and I cannot imagine a better master,” he finished meekly and Arthur snorted, turning back to his very important task of figuring out how the tab worked.

“Your majesty,” John said pointedly, placing a cup of tea in front of Sherlock. Carefully, the detective picked it up and took a tentative sip as if expecting it to be poisoned. A second later, however, his shoulders relaxed and he let out a sigh of content.

“Throughout all my travels,” he said, “this is what I missed the most.”

“My tea,” John cocked an eyebrow, “You missed my tea.”

“I missed your tea because me drinking it subsequently implied that I was in your presence and enjoying your invaluable companionship again,” Sherlock replied.

There was a beat of silence and then a small laugh.

“Smooth,” Dean acknowledged, the first thing he had said in their presence today.

“It seems he that ‘throughout his travels’ he has picked up some tricks,” John muttered, “Tricks as in ‘How to talk to human beings without them wanting to rip your head off’.”

“Throughout my travels I didn’t get much chance to talk to human beings,” Sherlock told him, “Demons mostly. And hunters don’t much care for courtesies.”

“So after you staged your suicide, you became a hunter?” Sam asked, trying to recall all he had read back then about ‘The Fake Genius’, “Why?”

“It’s a bit of a long story,” Sherlock began, but John cut him off with a roll of his eyes.

“Which basically means that he is going to tell it in all its details because he loves the sound of his own voice,” he commented; Sherlock pouted, but did not protest – probably because he knew that it was only the truth.

“May I then?” he asked pointedly “After all you haven’t heard it either.”

“By all means,” John waved a hand and sat down next to him, “Tell us your fairy tale.”

“Quite fitting that you would describe it as such,” for a moment Sherlock sounded somewhat gloomy, “A rather grim one.”

When Arthur and Merlin settled around the kitchen island as well, Sam gave Dean a slight push forward to do the same, grabbing the mugs John had put there along with the kettle. Maybe this little domestic scene would help them warm up to each other after they had all been so obviously wary just yesterday.

“Once upon a time,” Sherlock started after putting down his cup, “There was a man named James Moriarty. A brilliant man. He created a crime syndicate, a network that no one could penetrate. Most people had no idea that it existed, that _he_ existed. But he was a madman and he wanted to play a game with me. I was bored and proud back then so I agreed. It cost many lives; John and I narrowly escaped several times. But I was starting to wonder…”

Sherlock looked pensive, a glazed expression in his eyes, “How was it that he always managed to pull his head out of the noose, that he always knew what was going on? Some things just didn’t add up. So I started doing some additional research. And then my brother contacted me.”

He huffed a bit, as if annoyed that he had needed help in the first place, “Mycroft handles most of the British government. He has his eyes and spies everywhere. That was why he knew more than I did. While I had been blissfully unaware for most of my life, Mycroft had known about the supernatural for many years. I wanted to deny the truth, but I couldn’t, not when he provided me with so much evidence. Not to mention that that man is incapable of pulling any sort of practical joke. That’s when I realized it…”

Sherlock threw a sideway glance at John, “I once said that Moriarty wasn’t a man, but that he was a spider. I was at least half-way right. He isn’t a man. He is a demon.”

Sam could remember some of this; remembered reading that apparently Moriarty had only been an actor, that none of it had been real. And that Sherlock Holmes had been driven to end his life to escape the shame. Definitely sounded like a scheme any demon would enjoy.

“Moriarty was dead,” John said, his voice a little cracked, “They found his corpse on the roof of St. Bart’s. Headshot. Suicide. They thought you had forced him into it.”

“It was the other way round, obviously,” Sherlock tsk’ed, “And as you can see, I faked my death as well. My death and my funeral and everything else. But I am only a mere human being who had the assistance of Molly Hooper and Mycroft. Moriarty is a demon. He shot himself, yes, but he was never dead.”

“Then why did you jump?” John wanted to know, kneading his knuckles across his forehead, “How could he make you-“

“He threatened you,” Sherlock said matter-of-factly, with as little intonation as possible, but John looked up sharply, “Threatened me?”

“You and Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock continued in the same flat tone, “Snipers. They were supposed to shoot you, had I not played along. So I did.”

“Jesus,” John buried his face in his hands, “And I called you a machine…”

“It was part of my plan,” Sherlock said, “It was better this way. I didn’t want you to come searching for me”

“Why not?” John complained, “Sherlock, I could have helped you. You were still going after Moriarty, right? I could have-“

“The whole point of it was to save you! Why would I endanger you again by dragging you along?” Sherlock was starting to sound seriously frustrated. While Dean hated disclosing his feelings, Sherlock was apparently even more unused to admitting he even had any. And having to explain them in detail seemed to confuse him even more.

“Okay,” John nodded slowly, obviously thinking the same as Sam, “Okay. So you went after him. Alone. What were you trying to do? How do you kill a demon?”

“You can exorcise it,” Dean provided, giving Sherlock a questioning look, “I’m guessing that didn’t work out to well?”

“The demon had sealed himself into the vessel and wouldn’t leave it,” Sherlock shook his head, “Back then I was no hunter. I knew that Holy Water and salt worked to a certain extent, but other than that I had no idea what I was doing. My brother had warned me to go against such a powerful demon on my own; that’s why he helped my fake my death and has since provided me with information and resources.”

“Wait, wait,” Merlin held up a hand, “I only get half of what you are saying, but… if you are aware that he is alive, doesn’t this demon know that you are alive as well? Why isn’t he going after you?”

“I have been wondering the same,” Sherlock admitted, “Maybe it’s still only a game to him, to see me traipsing around. I’ve been looking for ways to kill him. To be exact I had just found Excalibur.”

“Excalibur?” Arthur’s eyes widened; he was not carrying the blade with him, but he seemed affronted, “How would you even know about my sword?”

“Well, you guys are kind of famous in our time,” Sam explained vaguely, “You’re basically a legend. Every child knows King Arthur and his sorcerer Merlin. And Excalibur.”

Merlin and Arthur exchanged a disbelieving look.

“So all this talk about destiny was true all along?” Merlin seemed understandably flummoxed, “I may have to apologize to a certain dragon later on.”

“Oh,” Sam sat up straight as he realized something, “that’s it.”

“That’s what, o smart one?” Dean asked roughly, giving him a muted glare, “Use your words.”

“It’s a connection,” Sam told them all, “Sherlock searching for Excalibur is a connection to Merlin and Arthur. The Doctor was right. Maybe there is more. Maybe were are all really connected to each other.”

“Speaking of the Doctor,” John said and glanced up, “Where-“

“Here I am,” a cheery voice greeted and they all looked towards the doorway where the Doctor was standing with his arms wide open, “Good morning, everyone.”

“Morning,” the echoed uncertainly, but the alien (real actual alien, Sam reminded himself) didn’t seem to mind.

“Good, good, good,” he rubbed his hands, observing their little group, “You are bonding. Bonding is important. Much more willing to risk your life when you are doing it for someone you like.”

“The amount of life-threatening occasions you mention is starting to worry me,” Dean admitted, “I haven’t even finished my coffee yet and you are ready to send us out into the big scary world.”

“Don’t be afraid,” the Doctor cooed, “I’ll hold your hand, if you want me to.”

“Er, no thanks.”

“Perfect. I prefer having both hands at my disposal. Makes fixing stuff and blowing up other stuff much easier as you probably all know,” the Doctor was giving off intense waves of excitement that had Sam’s fingertips itching for action. It was like an electric current running through his body. The others seemed to be similarly affected.

“So, Winchester it was?” John recalled, “As far as I can tell, we’re all ready to go.”

“Wonderful,” the Doctor’s eyes gleamed, “There’s no such thing as a bit of detective work before elevenses. Detective work and vampires.”

 

 

**~o0o~ To be Continued ~o0o~**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as this chapter was getting so incredibly long I decided to split it up to make reading easier, especially since the next half is going to contain a lot of information. Not much happening here, as of yet, but that will soon change.  
> Hope you enjoyed anyway.


	8. The Wessex Vampires (Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this was thought out and written before Season Gr8 of Supernatural, meaning before Benny was introduced. Thus Dean doesn't like vampires. Too bad.

“Vampires,” Dean groaned miserably as they were standing in front of the old mansion, “I hate vampires.”

“I thought you hated witches?” Sam teased and Dean’s shoulder’s slumped, “Yeah, but vampires are almost as bad.”

“Hush now,” the Doctor warned them as he rang the doorbell, “I won’t have you offending these people. They are dear friends of mine.”

Sam was all for equality and against racism, but although he had kind of grown used to having Meg around every now and again, the thought of specifically asking vampires for help did not sit well with him either. But who knew, maybe British bloodsuckers were different.

The door opened, not only a gap, but wide and without any hesitation. In the threshold stood a woman who literally welcomed them with open arms. Her age was hard to guess, one of those people who could have been anything between thirty to fifty-five, crow’s-feet around her eyes, but her smile made her look younger.

“Doctor,” she said warmly, pulling him into a hug, “It’s good to see you.”

“Oh, but it just dropped by a little while ago,” he answered, returning her embrace.

“Little while in your life maybe,” she laughed, “For us that was back in the eighties.”

“Oh yes, I remember. You had done this unfortunate _thing_ with your hair,” he began but she quickly shushed him, “Let’s not talk of that, shall we? Come in, come in. Who are your friends, Doctor?”

They all scuffled into the – luckily broad – hallway of the mansion and stood around a little awkwardly.

“Those are Arthur and Merlin, I’m sure you’ve heard of them before,” the Doctor introduced briefly but with a wink, “Here are Sam and Dean Winchester. They are, well, they are hunters, to be honest.”

Way to go to leave a bad first impression on a vampire. But when the woman looked at the brothers her eyes gleamed in a manner that did not suggest blood thirst, but rather… curiosity. Strange.

“And here, John Watson and Sherlock Holmes,” the Doctor gave a little grin, “Him you probably still remember as well.”

Sherlock stepped forward as the woman placed both hands on her hips and gave him a proper once over.

“Look at you,” she said in admiration, “What a handsome thing you are.”

“Professor Ferguson,” Sherlock inclined his head with a tiny smile, “It’s good to see you again.”

“Oh, you silly boy, stop being so bloody polite,” she reached out her arms and simply pulled him into a hug as well, “Don’t tell me you’ve finally learned some manners. That would completely ruin my day.”

“ _Manners makyth man,”_ Sherlock replied and they both chuckled as if they were sharing a very special private joke.

John politely cleared his throat and the two disentangled again.  
“John, this is Professor Alice Ferguson,” Sherlock said, “My teacher at Winchester College, as I mentioned. And, apparently, a vampire.”

“I knew that one way or the other you would find out about us,” Alice sounded downright proud, “You were always too smart to be left in the dark for long.”

“Admittedly, I didn’t work it out myself,” Sherlock told her, “Though it does explain some things. Like your light sensitivity.”

“Well, that doesn’t change anything about the fact that I still don’t age,” she sighed, “I’ve been teaching for the past thirty-eight years. People are bound to get suspicious, so I’m afraid I’ll have to retire soon and return in a few years when no one remembers me. The burden of immortality. But please, you should all meet my family. Christy is dying to meet you, Doctor.”

They all followed her into what was apparently the living room. More like a hall with tall, narrow windows and an arched ceiling. Wow. This house must’ve been ancient. Which kinda fit in with the whole vampire thing, Sam reckoned.

They spread out on the various couches and arm chairs, Alice sitting down across from them all in a worn loveseat, folding her hands in her lap.

“Tea should be ready in a moment,” she said pleasantly and, wow, okay, tea-drinking vampires. Interesting. He wondered whether Alice and her so-called family were the kind of vampires that bit humans or only fed on animals. Probably the latter. From what he had witnessed up till now, he couldn’t imagine that the Doctor would be friends with creatures who knowingly harmed humans.

The sound of measured steps and clinking porcelain alerted them to the arrival of another person. Old habit and suspicion made Sam and Dean sit up and crane their necks.

Another woman had entered the room, carrying an overladen tray. She had smooth, caramel skin and her long, dark hair was up in a bun. She looked younger than Alice, broad in the shoulders and somewhat sturdy, but also curvier and kind of exotic, though Sam couldn’t quite pinpoint her origin.

She smiled at their group as she skillfully set down cups and saucers and small plates, pouring tea and offering scones. Tea-drinking, scones-eating vampires then. When they were all settled, she finally sat down next to Alice, their thighs pressed together.

“This is Dolores,” Alice said brightly, “My wife.”

There was a beat of silence before the Doctor spluttered.

“Wife?!” he echoed, holding on to his cup, “How on all the stars in the milky way-“

“We got married a few years ago,” Alice answered fondly, but with an eye roll, “I’ve been around for over a century and this is how long it takes them to finally legalize gay marriage. Atrocious, yes?

“No, I find something else much more atrocious,” the Doctor glared at her, “Why wasn’t I invited to the wedding?”

“Well, if you had a fixed mail address, we might have sent you a letter,” Alice sniffed, “Either way, it was only a small ceremony. Just us and Rob and Christy and a few friends. It wasn’t that important to us. After all we’ve been together for sixty years. What kind of difference does a piece of paper make? But it was nice anyway.”

“We are now a married couple in the eyes of the law,” Dolores spoke up in a dark voice, some sort of accent making it sound stunted and careful as she shyly glanced up through thick lashes, “I feels good.”

“Dolores used to be my maid, back in the day,” Alice explained, “Mr. Ferguson, my husband, was killed by his son Jack when we were sleeping. Jack had been jealous of our newborn Robert. Somehow he got bitten and decided to use the opportunity to frame me for my husband’s murder, making him the sole heir to our fortune. But Dolores interfered. She saved me, but during the fight both of us got bitten as well. Luckily, the Doctor showed up just then. He helped us take down Jack and explain everything to Scotland Yard. And he helped us adept. It wasn’t easy, but we owe him our lives.”

So, at least now they had a proof that the Doctor knew what he was doing. Most of the time anyway.

“Okay, as charming as this reunion thing is, what exactly are we doing here?” Dean got down to the core of the matter as was his usual wont, “No offense, ladies, - you seem really sweet, and hey, lesbian vampires, I appreciate that – but I’m a bit suspicious of how you could help us.”

To pretty much everyone’s surprise Alice only laughed again.

“Once a hunter, always a hunter, right?” she said, her eyes crinkling, “Don’t worry, I understand your concerns. But I can promise you that the Doctor has brought you here for a very good reason. And according to my tingly vampire senses, I can already hear my son and my daughter-in-law on the stairs. And, yes, there they are.”

Another door opened and this time a young couple stepped through. The guy had flaxen hair, was tall and gangly, but relatively broad in the shoulders, while the girl was short next to him, a round face with thick-rim glasses and a dark pixie-cut. Both of them were carrying books, the girls holding them pressed against her chest a little awkwardly.

“’lo,” said the guy, holding up a huge hand and giving a somewhat lazy wave, “Nice to meet ya.”

“Hi,” the girl said somewhat shrilly, quickly cleared her throat and repeated in a deeper voice, “Hhr, hello.”

“My son Robert and his wife Christy Howard-Ferguson,” Alice introduced, “As you can probably already guess, they are vampires as well.”

But they must’ve been turned quite a while after Dolores and Alice were bitten by her stepson Jack, because she had said that Robert had been a baby back then. Now he looked to be at least twenty-seven, while Christy didn’t seem much younger. But it made sense, Sam reckoned. Alice let her son grow up as a human, but after a while he wanted to become a vampire as well. His mother didn’t age and probably couldn’t bear the thought of him dying of old age. Same must go for Christy. When she had been let in on the secret, she had wanted to stay by Robert’s side. It was a sweet and yet a terrible thought, at least to Sam.

However, he was roused from his musing by the surprised sound Dr. Watson suddenly made, jumping up from the couch and marching over to where Christy and Robert were standing.

“I don’t believe it,” John said, eyes wide, “Rob? Ruthless Robby? You are a vampire?”

“Jawbreaker John!” Robert seemed equally caught off guard, “Never thought I’d see you again. Last thing I heard was you’d been blown to bits over in the desert.”

“Yeah, I was bloody well almost done for,” John thumped his left shoulder as if it meant anything, “But as you can see, still alive and kicking – without any superpowers, as I might add.”

“Of course, you’re gonna hold it against me,” Robert rolled his eyes and threw an arm around John to pull him into a manly half-hug, his other hand still balancing the books, “You’re just jealous because I scored that final point.”

“Oh, shut up,” John was grinning up at him, “Dammit, look at you. You really haven’t changed a bit.”

“They already know each other?” Arthur intoned, “Why do I feel like I’m missing something?”

“Come and sit down, you boys,” Alice waved them over, and John reluctantly returned to his place next to Sherlock while Robert placed his books on the table before sinking down to sit next to Christy who had already gotten comfortable on the rug.

Dean’s eyebrow was twitching which was never a good sign, “Sorry, but- Ruthless Robby? Jawbreaker John?”

John actually laughed out loud, suddenly seeming years younger, “Yeah, well, Robby was always ruthless on the field. Earned himself quite a name within a single season.”

“Oh, like you’re one to talk,” Robert snorted, turning to their general audience as if he was making a grand announcement, “At the end of our first match together, during a scrum with the other team, this fella here actually manages to break the jaw of an opposing player. And then – because he’s supposedly a doctor – bloody tells the guy how long he’ll probably have to drink through a straw. Never heard anthin’ like it.”

John laughed again, obviously happy to remember old times, but glancing over, Sam noticed the concentrated – or rather constipated – look on Sherlock’s face.

“You used to both play rugby,” he said, looking Robert back to John, “You always kept track of the Winchester RFC and had them bookmarked on your laptop. But you and him, you were only playing as a hobby. You said he still looks the same, which is roughly between twenty-five and twenty-nine years old, and it’s probably that back then you were of the same age. He just mentioned he thought you had possibly even died in Afghanistan. Only logical deduction, you got your further military training in the John Moore Baracks. And here we have the second link to this city. My own time as a student at Winchester College and now _this_ , which means that the Doctor was already right. We might all be linked to this place, in one way or the other.”

“You blundering oaf, you read my records ages ago, you knew that I was trained here,” John said, but was somehow mostly drowned out by the Doctors exclamation of “Excellent deduction!”

“Then what about the rest?” Arthur asked, “As promising as this sounds, I can not imagine why – how many years into our future is this? - Merlin and I might be linked to this town. There are these carriages that are drawn by neither horse nor magic, entire buildings made of steel and glass – and you want us to believe that Merlin and me are somehow tied to your _adventure_ , as you call it?”

Yeah, Sam could kinda understand why Arthur was having a hard time accepting all that. Especially since the modern world must have been horribly overwhelming. However, it was Merlin who found the words to convince his liege.

“You are the once and future king, Arthur,” he said, giving him an intense stare that eerily reminded Sam off the ones Dean and Cas were so fond of exchanging, “You are going to unite all of Albion. Don't you understand? In this time and age, people still remember you. There are books written about you, songs and poems that tell about your grand deeds. You are still part of this world.”

There was a moment of quiet during which Arthur simply stared back,

“Well,” the king finally conceded, “As a wise woman once said to me 'You and Merlin are two sides of the same coin'. I believe most of these songs are about both of us.”

Merlin blinked, “Wise woman? Who?”

Arthur huffed a little, “Your mother.”

“What?” Merlin seemed offended, “She used the same one on me. I don't believe she couldn't come up with something more original.”

“Don't worry, Guinevere, Gaius, Gwaine and various other people have all hinted at the same thing using some more fancy words that I do not care to repeat right now,” Arthur shook his head, “ Apparently, the two of us are in for some mind-boggling fate. Be as it may, I shall believe it for now.”

“Wonderful,” the Doctor clapped his hands in excitement, “Then let's get to the fun stuff: Research!”

A collective groan went through the room, apart from Sherlock and Alice who were grinning as much as the doctor.

“Off to the library!” the time lord jumped up from his arm chair in a Superman-esque pose, only to be stopped by Robert loudly clearing his throat and pointing to the books him and Christy had already carried in.

“When you called, I thought I'd already pick out everything we would need,” Alice apologized with a laugh, “Those books are the most important for now. Everything about the Arthurian Legend, the town's history and related myths is in there.”

“Oh”, the Doctor flopped down again, looking somewhat deflated.

“Would you care to give us a quick rundown, Professor?” Sherlock asked politely and she nodded.

“Okay, so there is this,” Alice picked up on of the book, one that looked like a relatively new edition, but was already rather worn, “This is a compilation of all the myths and facts surrounding the Arthurian Legend. It's rater difficult taking it all apart. But I think we can safely say that King Arthur and Merlin did exist.”

“Yes, I think I feel rather real, thank you,” Arthur said dryly, but with no bad intent and Alice answered with a grin.

“To be honest, I know pretty much everything about you,” she said and actually looked a bit embarrassed when she realized that it made her sound like an obsessive fan girl, “I mean, I've researched anything possible about the legend. But that's the problem. There are so many things simply made up, added only within the last few centuries by some obscure poets and wanna-be historians. However, Winchester Castle actually displays the Round Table; it's not the real one, but it still has pretty solid historic meaning. The only ones who know what's true would be you, Merlin and Arthur, and even then not all of it has happened to you yet. And you folks don't seem to be quite sure yet what exactly you are looking for. So maybe it would be best if everyone just grabbed a book and started reading?”

That actually seemed like the best option. They didn't know much yet. The Doctor hadn't told them much, even though he actually seemed to be keeping some details from them.

Sam couldn't help but wonder whether that was because he was a time traveler. He possibly already had a at least a hunch about what was going to happen to them. After all everyone else knew the most important points of Merlin's and Arthur's lives. Maybe the Doctor had already seen the same for the other men and was trying to shield them from certain knowledge.

So for now it was probably for the best if they did as Alice said and simply dug into the books. Sam was cool with that. He was good with research. Beside him Dean was already thrumming with nervous energy; he had never liked knowing what he was up against, preferring to throw himself into the fray and hope for the best.

Now, though, they had no immediate enemy and had to make do.

So with some shrugging and mumbling, everyone grabbed a random book and started reading. From the corner of his eye he noticed how John was doing so a bit hesitantly. Probably because until only a few hours ago the poor bastard hadn't even known about anything magic and and time travel and vampires and was afraid he'd miss important points in the books. If this hunt or mission or whatever was going to take more than a couple of days they would have to give him a little Supernatural 101. Few things were more risky than dragging along a clueless civilian, even if he was an armed army surgeon.

For a few minutes there was only some rather shuffling and page-turning and the occasional tinker of tea cups. Awkward silences were awkward when it was only between two persons. This uncomfortable tension in the air between eleven adults, most of which were strangers to one anther, put it all to an entirely new level. Maybe that was because they were Brits. Or because they weren't hunters. The Winchesters were used to a rougher kind of interaction among the people of their trade. Sitting around here and pleasantly sipping tea must've been driving Dean crazy, Sam mused with a wry smile.

“Wait a moment,” Merlin suddenly cut into the quiet, sounding slightly crazed, “Why is this one called 'The Death of Arthur'?”

“Hands off. Spoilers!” the Doctor chided, actually reaching over and lightly slapping the boy on the back of his hand to make him drop the volume which the alien quickly snatched up and tucked away so Sam only caught the gold letters on the cover. _Le Morte d'Arthur._

Everyone else exchanged nervous glances, and yeah, Sam could get why the Doctor was so worried about them finding out about their futures, but Arthur only sighed.

“Merlin, I think we will have to accept that one day I will die, whether you like it or not,” he said in a reasonable manner, “Perhaps it shall be through the sword, a poisoned chalice or Time's calling, but you and your magic will not be able to save me from death forever.”

It was a very wise answer. Sam idly wondered whether that came with being a king or a warrior or simply from being born in the Dark Ages when the overall life expectancy wasn't all that high.

Merlin was frowning and looking very unhappy which Sam could relate to. No matter how many loved ones you lost, you always had the secret hope that the ones you still had left would somehow turn out to be immortal.

Everyone went back to reading, though this time it was with a tiny bit more vigor and less awkwardness. John asked Sherlock a couple of specific questions, attentively listened to the answers and always gave a sharp nod in understanding. Dean politely asked for another scone which Dolores handed him along with some more clotted cream, Chrissy poured herself and Robert another cup of tea, Alice got more comfortable on her seat while Arthur would occasionally point to random objects in the room and exchanged a whisper with Merlin, apparently to determine what the use of the cuckoo clock on the wall was.

Sam tried really hard to concentrate on his own book, but something kept nagging him. Confidentially he leant over to where the Doctor was sitting.

“I have a question,” he said carefully, a frown creasing his forehead “Regarding Arthur and Merlin. They shouldn’t even be able to understand modern day English. But just now, with the book, Merlin actually translated the French title into English, so...”

He trailed off for a moment, the Doctor giving him an encouraging nod as of he wanted him to work it out for himself. Sam frowned some more – but then realization dawned to him and his eyes widened, “Oh. Wow. So the TARDIS translates everything in our heads. That’s pretty cool, actually.”

The Doctor grinned proudly.

“Otherwise there wouldn't really be a point to take companions along,” the time lord replied, “There are some languages that are very difficult to find proper dictionaries for, especially tour guide ones. Humans are especially bad. So many seem to think that English is the answer to all questions, but you would not believe just how many dialects are threatened by extinction because they are no longer taught to children. Though you have to give it to Tolkien that some people actually learned Quenya because of his works. Surely you are aware of the fact that Quenya was the language of a specific family of elves who regularly visited him.”

Sam nodded because, sure, he'd totally known that.

“Okay, sorry, but this is driving me nuts,” Dean tossed his book back onto the table, “You can't tell me that any of you believe that we'll randomly stumble across any clues. We've got to have at least some idea what we might be searching for. Otherwise it's just looking for hay in a needle stack.”

Yeah, Sam had to agree on that one. They were more likely to miss something like this than do any good.

“We do know that Merlin was meant as a vessel, right?” he pointed out, “We only have to find out for what, or even who exactly. And I still believe that it might be an angel.”

He had already had that idea back in the TARDIS but somehow it had gotten drowned out in the general confusion. And even now Dean rolled his eyes, obviously ready to object.

“No, listen,” Sam said quickly, “It's a sound theory. There was a summoning and Morgana seemed to need Merlin's permission. Who needs permission to enter a meatsuit? Angels.”

“Last time I checked, blood sacrifices and bonfires were part of witchcraft or even demon summoning,” Dean reminded him, “So maybe it was a big demon. Abaddon big. Behemoth big.”

To Merlin those names meant absolutely nothing, even if he might have been intended as a vessel for them. But Sam could see the muscle tensing at the side of Dean's jaw and not for the first time Sam wondered just how many memories from Hell his brother still carried around.

“Yeah, but here's the thing,” Sam said, trying to make his rather jumbled thoughts conceivable, closing his eyes for a moment.

“I realized something,” he said to the room at large, aware that everyone was listening, “Apparently, once you've traveled in the TARDIS all the languages you hear or read are immediately translated in your head. That's why Merlin and Arthur understand our English. And why _we_ understood them when we went back into their timeline. However, when we exorcized those demons there, we were speaking Latin. Which means that if we consciously concentrate on it, we can influence whether what we say is translated into the common language of wherever we have been taken, right?”

He looked at the Doctor for confirmation and the time lord did nod slowly, but surely. Sherlock was frowning slightly, obviously following Sam's reasoning more quickly than the others.

“You think we missed a clue because it was translated without our knowledge,” the detective concluded, “That there was something, but we didn't notice because it didn't sound note-worthy in the first place.”

“Exactly,” Sam turned to Merlin and Arthur, “You heard Morgana speak back there, but you hadn't yet been in the TARDIS. So you must have heard which language she was using, while to us it simply sounded like English”

"She was speaking the language of the druids,” Arthur shrugged helplessly, “And then Latin. Something about opening a door to allow passage into our world. But then she continued in another language. I didn't recognize it at all.”

“Me either,” Merlin shrugged in apology.

“We have to narrow it down,” Sherlock said, “What other languages do you speak or would have been able to recognize beside Latin?”

“Gaelic and other Brythonic varieties,” Arthur counted off of his fingers because of course he was a king and had enjoyed more extensive education, “And Greek, of course.”

“Gaius has taught me the most common dialects of the druids,” Merlin added, “But it didn't sound like one of those.”

“What else would be likely?” John asked, “I mean, I'm new to this whole magic stuff, but what other languages were generally used for this business in Europe?”

“No, Europe's got nothing to do with it,” Sherlock waved it off, “Egyptian, Latin, Greek were all the prevailing tongues used for sorcery. But magic has been used all over the world, there are too many different-”

Something occurred to Sam.

“But maybe it wasn't from this world,” he said, “Maybe it wasn't a human language.”

“Well, I'm sorry, but my mentors never taught me any of those,” Arthur said somewhat sarcastically.

“Yeah, but,” Sam glanced over at his brother, “Dean, give us a taste of your Enochian.”

Dean looked up, frowning in confusion, “What?”

“Say something in Enochian,” Sam urged.

“I don't really speak Enochian.”

“I know, but you always do a damn good job of imitating Cas,” Sam rolled his eyes, “Just try to remember something he once said. Arthur and Merlin might be able to at least recognize the accent.”

“Oh, damn it,” Dean looked up at the ceiling for a moment, thinking hard, then he took a deep breath and said in a very deep, gravely voice, “Zodireda noco abramg nazpsad.”

Sam gave him a look, “You didn't really have to imitate Cas.”

Dean shrugged, “It's easier this way.”

“Does this sound familiar to you?” the Doctor asked Arthur and Merlin who were frowning and staring at the table as if it would reveal any answers.

“I'm not sure,” Merlin said slowly, “I mean, I had just gotten whacked over the head when I heard Morgana talking. But I think the words sounded... throatier, while the rhythm was smoother and more fluent.”

Everybody's shoulders slumped in momentarily defeat.

“So, not to sound particularly dim,” John began carefully, “But what exactly is Enochian?”

“It's considered an occult, constructed language,” Sherlock made a complicated gesture with his left hand, “But apparently it is really the actual language of the heavenly host.”

“Oh. Wow,” John blinked, looking astounded, “You would have thought that angels spoke Hebrew or something. But yea, doesn't really make sense...”

A moment of silence followed. Then Sam's eyes widened and he looked over at Sherlock to find the same kind of realization reflected in the detective's gaze.

“Brilliant, John,” Sherlock exclaimed, “I told you were a unique conductor of light.”

“Here,” Sam had already pulled out his smartphone and was online-searching for audio files that would serve their purpose.

“The TARDIS probably wouldn't have been able to translate Enochian either way,” he said, “But if you now concentrate on this being a different language...”

He pressed play and a second later a male voice started reciting an old prayer in Hebrew. Sam could feel his brain wanting to translate the words, but he forced the thoughts down, focusing on the knowledge that it was actually a different language, that this was only the TARDIS's doing and that he did not actually speak Hebrew.

Arthur and Merlin were seemingly having similar difficulties, staring hard at the phone as if it would make it easier to understand – or rather, not understand. And then Merlin nodded.

“That's it,” he said, a reluctant smile spreading over his face, “I mean, at least it sounds very similar.”

“I could not imagine anything else,” Arthur agreed, “I don't know where Morgana would have gotten her hands on such an incantation, though.”

“Who cares?” Dean said gruffly, “Only thing that matters is that your whack-o witch of a sister got her hands on some fancy spell. And with that kind of specific sacrifices it seems to be a pretty powerful one at that.”

“So let's just assume it really was an angel,” Sam clung on to his theory, “Back in... I don't know, back in Bible times, I guess; most people probably didn't have a friendly neighborhood angel who helped them out with Enochian. So they used Hebrew for their summoning. And the 'flesh and blood and breath' or whatever as a binding instead of Holy Oil.”

“What would you do with an angel, though?” John asked, “So Morgana is crazy, I get that. And the angels in questions are probably more of the smiting sort instead of those you see in Christmas ads. But say, you've got one and you've given him a- vessel or whatever you call it. What then? Do you have control over it?”

Sam shook his head, “No human being can actually have power over a heavenly being. At least not in our experience.”

“They are stubborn douche-bags,” Dean provided with a dry smile, “They are the ones who exert their will upon puny humans and use them for their wicked schemes.”

At that Sam blinked slowly.

“Wicked schemes,” he repeated to himself, “That's it.”

“It's not Morgana all by herself who's pulling the strings,” Sherlock followed, “She thinks she's the one in charge, but in actuality...”

“Morgana has been made the puppet of an- an angel?” Arthur concluded sceptically. It occurred to Sam that neither Merlin nor the King knew anything about Christianity while everyone had been happily talking about Bibles and other such things. This was one hell of a culture clash; aliens, strange religions, supernatural creatures, magic, time-travel and cuckoo clocks all in one day.

“Great,” Dean groaned, “So we're up against feathery assholes. Again.”

Arthur and Merlin exchanged a wide-eyed look. Probably taking the feathery asshole literally. Ouch.

“An evil angel?” John wondered aloud, “Like Lucifer or what?”

Sam felt bile rising in his throat and took deep, calming breaths to force it down again.

“No,” he said, “I think we are pretty much safe from Lucifer.”

“Are we, though?” Dean gave him a sympathizing look, “Think about it, man. He's back in the Cage after we put him there. But we also freed him in the first place. What if Morgana was trying to let him lose back in her time? And now we have to prevent the apocalypse again, only some centuries earlier. When we stopped it the first time, it was actually their second time around, if you get what I mean. Maybe that's why they already knew stuff about us when they met us later on. It's like _Back to the Future_ when Marty meets his parents and his mom thinks Marty would be a nice name for a kid and-”

“Dude, stop it, I think your brain is catching fire,” Sam held up a hand to slow him down, “I really don't think it's Lucifer.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Back in the Valley of the Kings I felt a supernatural presence, alright. But it was not Lucifer. I would have definitely recognized _him_ ,” he answered and Dean didn't argue.

“Let's just assume that's a dead end right there,” the Doctor was rubbing his hands again, “Maybe it is an angel, maybe it isn't. What else do we have?”

“Nothing,” the others answered as one and the Doctor pulled a face.

“That's not true,” he pouted, “I told you, Winchester is the new Rome.”

“Personally, I'm not very fond of the Romans,” Arthur huffed, “Hadrian's Wall was totally uncalled for.”

“Agreed, but that's neither here nor there,” the Doctor waved him off, “But you forget something.”

“The Winchesters in Winchester,” Sherlock declared, crossing his arms across his chest, “Arthur, Merlin, John and myself are all from England. But you have never been here before. You are strangers in a strange land.”

“Oh, that's one for me again,” Alice said excitedly, “I can't help you out when it comes to angels but I've been living in this city for almost a hundred years. I know my way around. Let me see.”

She tapped a finger to her chin, “You guys are American and unlike John and Sherlock you have no personal connections to this place. Apart from your surname, of course. Oh, this is tricky. It could mean anything. Do you have any other information about your family's history, anything even remotely supernatural?”

The two brothers exchanged a look.

“Not on our dad's side,” Dean answered.

“But we know that our mom's family was from England,” Sam said, recalling the bits and pieces he remembered from reading the journals of their grandfather's collection, “Apparently, they've been hunters for centuries.”

“Really?” Alice leaned forward in her seat, “What was their name?”

“Campbell.”

The half-suppressed screech of excitement Alice made had everyone jumping.

“What, you recognize it?” Dean asked roughly, his eyes narrowing.

“Recognize it?” Alice snorted, already grabbing a book and leafing though it, “I've been reading about it for decades.”

Okay, so that was a bit of surprise, but Alice obviously knew exactly what she was looking for.

“Aha!” she said triumphantly, holding up the book for everyone to see. The page displayed the copy of a graphite sketch, a mansion much like this one but bigger and more ornate.

“In 1370 this house was built by William of Wykeham, the Bishop of Winchester and pretty much the richest man around,” Alice explained intently, “He was responsible for the overall striving of the town back then – and for the construction of the new cathedral. Wanna take a guess where the _old_ cathedral had been standing?”

Sam stared at the illustration, “He built this mansion there, on sacred ground. For himself?”

“No, he gave it to a family that had just moved here,” Alice answered and Dean jerked slightly.

“You're saying that those were the Campbells?” he asked in disbelief, “And that they were already hunting back then?”

“Take a look at this,” Alice turned a page in the book, now showing them the copy of some sort of woodcarving that depicted a crest.

“The Campbell house got torn down over two-hundred years ago,” Alice continued, “But this is their family crest. Here.”

She handed Sam the book so they could examine the black-and-white picture more carefully. It consisted of a shield surrounded by a wreath of leaves. The shield itself was divided by a cross in the middle, creating four smaller sub-sections. The lower quarter on the left contained the outline of a tree, the right one the stylized version of a dragon; above this, in the upper right corner a longsword was laid. The left corner showed a small round coin or amulet with something written on it, but the letters were too small, the words unreadable.

“I get the sword and the dragon, if they were really hunters,” Dean contemplated, turning his head this way and that way as if that would help him find more details, “But what's with the leaves? Is that laurel?”

Alice shook her head, “Beech. The tree, too.”

“And what exactly does it tell us?”

“It tells us that you and your brother are even more deeply connected to this town than Sherlock and John,” Alice answered. “They know Winchester on a personal level, ten or twenty years past. But your family was an important part of the history of this area. Without William of Wykeham this town might not have made it to through the middle-ages. But he actually encouraged the Campbells to settle down here. You think that's a coincidence?”

Sam didn't, not anymore. That Sherlock had gone to school here and that John had gotten his military training, okay. That there were hints about the Arthurian Legend all over England was a given, too. But that their ancestors had actually been living here for almost a thousand years, that they maybe still had some distant relatives here was mind-boggling.

The Doctor had been right. Winchester was the new Rome. Now they only had to find out what it all meant.

“And what do we do now?” Arthur asked, “Coming across clues in old books is all fine, but surely there is something to do with this new-found knowledge?”

“Now we do field work,” Sherlock answered him and John rolled his eyes and added, “Obviously.”

“Where do we start?” Merlin wanted to know, “This town is big.”

“The place where the Campbell house used to stand?” Dean offered, but Alice shook her head, “You won't find anything there. Trust me, all the traces are gone.”

“Then where?”

“Where do people go when they have no longer a place among the living?” Alice hinted and Sam thought for a second, “The graveyard.”

She nodded, “In a town like this half of the history lessons can be taught just by reading the inscriptions on the tombstones.”

“So we're gonna play a round of tomb raider?” Dean proposed, but Alice's look turned sour, “You will not raid anything. Having a closer look should be enough.”

“How do you know?”

“When you live as long as I do, you tend to spend a lot of time in graveyards because that’s where most of your friends are.”

Yeah, Sam thought sullenly. You didn’t have to be immortal to experience something like that. Just that sometimes you only had ashes instead of earth and flowers.

“But first and foremost I am a history teacher,” Alice added, distracting them from darker thoughts, “I just happen to be a vampire. Luckily for you, though, I’ve got contacts.”

“Contacts to whom?”

“To people who know more about what you are trying to find out. To hunters. And the best for this kind of thing happens to live just at the other end of the town.”

“You're seriously friends with hunters?” Dean asked incredulously.

The vampire held up her hands, “I don't threaten them, they don't threaten me. Here, I'll write you down the address.”

“Wouldn't it be easier if you just came with us?” Sherlock wondered, obviously enjoying his time around her, “Why drag some other people into this business?”

“Oh, my dear, have you looked at the weather?” Alice's tone turned apologetic, “There's not a cloud in the sky. At this rate I'm gonna blister up within minutes. And believe me, sometimes asking for help can be a very good idea.”

She stood up and reluctantly everyone else followed.

It was strange, Sam pondered, this easy familiarity between the Doctor and a family of vampires, between Sherlock and Alice, between John and Robert.

For the Winchesters Bobby had been their main resource, the one with the books and the brains to remember it all; the had been a small, broken family and somehow it had worked. This was... this was like asking old friends for a minor favor. In true Winchester fashion this usually got said friends killed. The Doctor didn't see to be having those problems, or if he didn't he didn't show it. But who knew, a man who traveled around in time and space probably carried a lot of secrets and regrets as well.

But right now Sam didn't want to dwell on that. Right now he was feeling much too energetic. They had some sort of clue and a definite direction instead of a dead-end. That was more than what they had started out with this morning.

Alice scribbled down the hunter's address on a slip of paper and pressed it into the Doctor's hand before everyone shuffled around for goodbyes which made Sam feel rather out of place, not knowing whether to cross his arms over his chest or shake someones hand, preferring to observe the others around him.

“This is for you, Doctor,” Christy was saying meekly, unwrapping the red and black scarf she wore around her neck and offering it to the time lord who accepted it galantly.

“It's the colors of the Winchester City F.C.,” she explained sheepishly, “I thought you might like their motto.”

Curiously the Doctor examined the words that were stitched underneath the football club's banner.

“Many in men, One in spirit,” he read out loud and his eyes shone, “Oh, Christy, my girl, this is so thoughtful, I love it.”

He wrapped the scarf around his own neck, bowtie still peeking out, before he bent down to press a kiss to her cheek. Sam was sure that if she hadn't been a vampire she would have blushed.

Sherlock shared another moment with Alice, John wrestled a little with Robert, the Doctor offered Dolores to maybe take her back in time to visit her family in Peru, Dean was trying (and failing) to work his flirting wonders on Chrissy and Arthur and Merlin had discovered the wonders of the electrical fan that was standing on the dresser.

They ushered themselves to the door, Sam made an aborted gesture that might have been a wave in the general directions of the Fergusons and then then they left the house.

Once upon a time even Sam might have thought that having tea with King Arthur and Merlin, a vamp family and an alien was the most bizarre thing that could happen to him. However, that was before he set foot into the TARDIS.

**~o0o~**

**Next Stop: Winchester, England**

**~o0o~**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter inspired by “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire”. The name Robert Ferguson does actually appear in that story, so I could not resist calling his girlfriend Christy Howard, all in 'Live Fast and Twi-Hard'-fashion. Initially I only intended to write a chapter inspired by the Sussex Vampire, but set in Essex or Wessex instead, then I realized that there is a city called Winchester with a castle that exhibits the supposed Round Table. Not to mention the posh college (the motto of which is 'Manners makyth man') and the John Moore Barracks (which mostly deploy soldiers to Afghanistan). You can imagine my surprise when it all fit together so easily. Which is just one more proof that Superwholockin is clearly meant to be. <3  
> The influence of the Bishop of Winchester is true as well, even the part of the new cathedral, though the Campbell mansion is complety made up. The rugby and football club do exist, though.  
> You may also have noticed the fact that I'm a linguist and love toying around with languages. Hope the deductions and connections were coherent enough to follow.  
> Next chapter: The Copper Beeches which will inlude fae folk, grave yards and another of Holmes's clients with another twist added.


	9. The Copper Beeches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My name is Emrys,” he introduced himself, sounding more confident than he probably was, “These are my friends and companions. We have come to speak to the fae folk.”
> 
> “I am the fae folk,” the woman answered haughtily, “My name is Tanaquill. But as of tomorrow I shall be Gloriana, the Faerie Queene.”
> 
> A honest to God butterfly princess. This was getting weirder and weirder by the second.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so incredibly sorry that this took so long because, personally I find long-chaptered WIPs very hard to follow and I always try to avoid overly long waits in between updates.  
> It's just that with Merlin ending and everything happening on Doctor Who and Supernatural, it's just really difficult to keep track what of the canon is still meant to go into this story and what has to be disregarded. Very confusing, very annoying. Never thought that the Sherlock hiatus could be useful in some ways. ^^  
> But now the chapter is here and as always, it's a lot to take it, but I'll hope you enjoy anyway. Thank you all for reading (and reviewing). I greatly appreciate it.

**  
Chapter 7 – The Copper Beeches**

“ _I sit among the souls, A thousand stories untold,_

_Among the roots of this giant tree_

_Enchanted by the fire firefly light_

_On this midsummer night I draw the faerie eye to see_

_The past flows forth Till it finds the future”_

Copper Beech by Douglas Black

 

**Winchester, England, 7** **th** **of July 2012**

 

The small strawberry-colored and ivy-covered cottage at the other side of Winchester seemed to be the exact opposite of the dark, ancient house of the Fergusons.

Dean hadn’t dared to mention it (because he had managed to irritate one too many blood suckers in the past) but their residence had been exactly what he had imagined posh British vampires to live in. It was like from a bad TV show á la Sabrina the Teenage Witch, only that it featured the cool lesbian parents and the athletic but socially awkward son with his slightly nerdy yet adorable girlfriend. But they had been willing to help instead of trying to bite him, so that had been a pleasant surprise.

Now, though, Dean was wondering what expected them inside of this cute, little cottage.

The door was painted a squeaky shade of blue, just like the window shutters and the wooden fence that separated the front yard from the sidewalk. There was a green watering-can made of plastic and a half-hidden garden gnome, and with the well-tended lawn and the many flower pots it looked like something straight out of a glossy issue of ‘Better Homes and Gardens’.

In fact the hot summer air was filled not only with the constant buzzing of bees and other bugs, but the sweet, heavy smell of an over-abundance of flowers, most of which Dean couldn’t even name.

Older hunter, he thought to himself, about sixty years old. Retired. More of the reading and researching than actually ganking ghosts-sort of type. Probably with a lovely wife who insisted they keep up appearances in their cozy, little neighborhood. Once they knocked they’d all huddle into the living room that was covered in frilly cushions and be offered yet another round of tea and scones. Nice people, but ultimately probably useless.

He glanced at the brazen mailbox that was fastened to one of the fence’s poles and that was engraved with elaborate letters, spelling out the name _V. Hunter._

How fitting, Dean thought with an eye roll. A hunter named Hunter. Just like two Winchesters coming to Winchester. Sounded like the beginning of a very bad joke. But now there were here and Alice had said they would find help here and he guessed that for now he shouldn’t complain.

So it was Dean who unlatched the small gate and pushed it open, Dean who first stepped into the front yard and thus Dean, too, who seconds later found himself confronted with one of the biggest dogs he had ever seen. And that was saying something, considering that he had been torn to shreds by actual hell hounds.

And even though this one refrained from biting him (for now), it was quite skilled when it came to the whole growling and intimidating stuff. To Dean it seemed as if it had appeared out of nowhere and now he stood frozen, hands lifted in a half-placating, half-defensive manner, well-aware that behind him the Doctor and the rest of the TARDIS Boys were pretty much doing the same.

“Hound of Baskerville back from the dead?” John joked weakly, but Dean was pretty sure that this was no ghost or apparition, but an actual dog. And he couldn’t quite decide whether that made matters better or worse. He knew what to do against an angry spirit, but throwing salt at a rabid mutt would most likely do nada.

Fortunately, though, a sudden loud whistle cut sharply through the air and a second later the dog spun around and rushed back around the corner and towards the back of the cottage from where it had probably first come.

“Um,” Dean said, slowly lowering his hands, “Should we follow the dog or ring the bell instead?”

“I believe the dog pretty much announced our arrival,” Sam mused and with some general shrugging and nodding the seven of them made their way across the lawn, following a narrow path that led them along the side of the house and then indeed behind a bigger backyard.

The sight that greeted them, however, surprised Dean greatly.

Amidst a variety of flowers there was a young woman kneeling on one of those foam plastic cushions that gardeners always seemed to use. She was wearing denim shorts and a black tank top, dirty gardening gloves covering her hands that were holding a small shovel. The heavy load of freckles on her face reminded him of one of those speckled chicken eggs, but her long hair was up in a high ponytail, glistening in the most vibrant shade of auburn Dean had ever seen.

Yup, he thought, clicking his tongue, definitely’d hit on that.

He maintained a safe distance, though, because the big, black dog (Dean was pretty sure that it was a mastiff) was sitting peacefully in the grass, his pink tongue lazily peeking out of his muzzle. In the meanwhile the woman had shrugged off the gloves and elegantly lifted herself from the ground, sending them all a smile.

“Hi,” she said, stepping closer to them while they all seemed a bit hesitant, “I’m Violet Hunter. Pleased to meet you.”

Upon their no doubt collectively confused expressions she added, “Alice already called ahead and told me to expect you. Shuck there is used to scaring annoying salesmen away, but he’s actually a big baby, so no worries.”

Baby Shuck gave a spiteful little yap from his place on the lawn, but considering his size a little yap equaled a minor earthquake.

“You're a hunter?” Dean asked with both eye brows raised. In his experience hunters didn't live in snug cottages and do a little gardening in their freetime. They hid in cabins in dark words, drank too much and collected fancy weapons.

But Violet only gave a little eyeroll and a shrug.

“Hunter might be a bit of a stretch,” she admittedly bluntly, “But I'm an expert.”

“An expert in what?” Sherlock wanted to know; he still seemed a little peeved at the fact that his former professor hadn't come along on their little trip.

“Folklore,” Violet offered cheekily and although that shouldn't have convinced Dean it kind of did.

She chucked her gloves down onto the ground and then lifted her hands to pull the elastic band out of her hair before performing a rather epic head toss. The sun reflected off the shiny color and Dean was pretty sure he had only ever seen something like this in shampoo commercials.

“Let's get started, shall we?” the young woman asked, grinning at them.

“With what exactly?” Arthur asked warily, though Dean could only guess that as a king that king of was your default mode when someone gave you orders.

“To the grave yard, of course,” Violet blinked at him, “Alice said you needed to find the Campbell graves. So I thought I'd give you at tour.”

“Wait, you already know where the graves are?” Sam asked in disbelief, but Violet only grinned again, pointing a thumb at herself, “See? Expert, just like I said.”

Dean raised his hand as if this were a democratic voting, because in their weird little group it probably kind of was.

“I'm sold,” he declared and no one objected. And why would they? Alice said Violet was who they needed. Violet could prove that she was who they needed. And although the Doctor seemed to know more than he let on about all this stupid stuff he was keeping aggravatingly quiet about it.

“So, off to the grave yard!” the Doctor made a little Superman pose which earned him a few blank stares.

Dean wasn't too fond of graveyards. He either got attacked by raving ghosts or his little brother jumped down into the mouth of Hell, neither of which was particularly enjoyable. Figures, though, that the one time they go to a cemetery without planning to set someone's bones on fire, it's still to visit their family, even if they have been dead for hundreds of years. Knowing the Winchester luck, however, they'd still manage to enrage poor old great great-grandmother Campbell who'd then try to kill them. Yippie.

“Let me just grab my bag,” Violet told them and walked briskly towards the backdoor of her cottage, “You better wait out on the street for me. I'll be with you in a few minutes.”

So back to the street they went, the big ass dog following them with a happy tail-wag. God, that beast looked fucking huge even when it was standing next to Sam. Briefly he entertained the thought of Violet riding on top of her mastiff in a Mononoke Hime-fashion. He should probably stop, though. It had been difficult enough to make Sam believe he only watched anime for the porn.

Once they where standing on the curb again, it took only a little while for Violet to join them again. She had a messenger back slung over her shoulder, but other than that she was wearing the same clothes as before.

“It's just a ten minutes walk from here,” she told them, opening the gate so she could step out, Shuck close on her heels, “Though in this heat, we should probably make it fifteen so no one keels over.”

She easily took the lead, a fact Dean could easily appreciate. Violet moved with a certain confidence and dignity, self-assured yet with none of the arrogance some women were prone to express esspecially in front of a group of strange men. She actually seemed quite at ease, as if this was nothing unusual for her, and yeah, maybe it wasn't too difficult to imagine her as an actual hunter.

The Doctor had conviently parked the TARDIS just a few meters down the street, unobtrusive and inconspicous as if it had always just been there. Dean would never cheat on his baby, but he had to admit there were certain advantages in simply stepping into a wooden box and stepping out again a few miles or cities or centuries later, even if it felt like they were about to crash every damn time. Maybe he would get a chance to take a closer look at the TARDIS and figure out how it worked. Man, a time-traveling car would be the height of awesome. It'd really be like _Back into the Future._

For now, though, he was quite happy to let his gaze slide over the smooth curves of Violet's ass and her bare legs. Shuck was walking close by her side, no leash required. At least the beast was well-trained. Small mercies.

“We're going to Magdalen Hill Cemetery,” Sherlock observed when they passed by Wykeham Park, and okay, maybe all those history nerds really were on to something when they said everything was connected.

“No Man's Land,” Violet nodded, “Around here we've got a lot of places that might still refer to various parts of the Arthurian Legend. Kingfisher Way, Queen's Road, Knightswood View, Kings Hill, The Citadel, Monmouth and a dozen variations of all that. Of course, you've got a lot of that all over Britain, but it seems to hit you in the face once your research goes a little bit deeper.”

She looked over her shoulder and gave them all a careful once over, “Alice said you folks got King Arthur and Merlin among you which is easily the craziest shite I've come across up till now. But please tell me it's not the one who keeps checking me out.”

Whoops. He should try to be more subtle.

“I'm Arthur Pendragon,” the king said, inclining his head, “I feel I should tell you how grateful we are for your help.”

Violet looked at him for a moment, before turning around and walking backwards.

“So that must be Merlin,” she concluded, taking in the boy who was a shadow by Arthur's side like Shuck was by hers. Her gaze turned appreciative and, wow, who was being obvious with the checking out now?

Merlin managed to stare back for a moment before ducking his head, the tips of his ears turning red. So what, the mightiest warlock of all time was a shy virgin? He must've been a greater nerd than even Sam.

“We're there,” Violet announced a few moments later when they reached an open gate, the columns of which were decorated with signs that did indeed proclaim it to be Magdalen Hill Cemetery.

“Is the dog even allowed in here?” Dean asked as their strange little group strolled through the gates, but Violet only waved a dismissive hand, “I know the groundskeeper. He's okay with it.”

Dean looked around, mindly curious. There where few enough hunts that allowed him to indulge in the scenic view instead of madly chasing after some blood-thirsty creature. Or being chased for that matter. It was a nice change from their usual routine.

“So, you like gravestones, huh?” he asked conversationally, sidling up with the young woman in a hopefully casually manner, “Interesting hobby for a girl to have.”

“There is so much to learn from graves in general,” Violet replied with shining eyes, apparently no longer begrudging him his obvious interest in her, “How people lived, how they died. It's really exciting. Do you know John Keats?”

“Poet, right?” Dean confirmed, “Yeah, not really.”

“He's lies buried in Rome and his tombstone reads _Here lies One / Whose Name was writ in Water,_ because he thought that people would never remember him,“ she explained, “But what's more interesting is the fact that he spent some time in Winchester. And that here he wrote a poem titled 'Lamia'.”

Dean's eyes widened, “You think he was inspired by the actual creature?”

“I think he had a direct encounter with one or possibly even got caught up in one of the Campbell's hunts,” Violet corrected, “Is is such a stretch to believe that? Humans have always felt a need to express the indescribable. Maybe Shakespeare even really encountered witches.”

“He did!” the Doctor piqued up from behind, “He did and I was there and he wrote a sonnet about my friend Martha Jones!”

“Ignore him,” Dean told her and she simply nodded.

“And you think you can really help us simply by looking for clues on the Campbells' gravestones?”

“Well, you've got to throw me a bone here,” she admitted, “I know absolutely nothing about what you guys are looking for. But yeah, I daresay I'm pretty good at what I'm doing. And let's be honest; you're a hunter, right? You know that reasearch is the most important part of the job.”

“30% knowledge, 30% marksmanship, is what my uncle used to say,” Dean grinned at her, “The rest is just a big fat chunk of stupid luck.”

“Not so much marksmanship needed around here, I'm afraid,” she answered, “It's bloody difficult to get your hands on firearms. Especially when you're settled down. This isn't America. You have no idea how often I've barely escaped a lawsuit for breaking and entering or some other stuff.”

“So how did you get into the life, if you don't mind me asking?”

“My older sister, April,” Violet answered without hesitation, “She was taken away by faeries. My mother never got over it, thought she had been kidnapped and killed by some sicko. But I saw it happen. Never told anyone. But as I got older I tried to find out more about them. And somehow I ended up here.”

“Must've been hard for you,” Dean said softly, “Growing up like that.”

Of course he'd never really known anything but the hunter's way, but he'd had his father and later Sam to bear the brunt of that weight. Knowing what was out there but not being able to talk to anyone, especially as a child that had just experienced such a loss...

“It's okay,” Violet shrugged, “I know that the fairies never did her any harm. They believe they are doing the stolen children a favor. And once a human child is taken into their realm and tastes their food, it forgets everything about its previous life. There are worst fates.”

Dean could agree on that, but after his own encounter he could safely say that it was not an enjoyable trip, even if Violet's fairies sounded different from the ones that had attacked him. Small mercies.

For a few minutes they walked in silence, until the reached the far off corner of the extensive grave yard.

“We're here,” Violet said and pointed to a small mausoleum made out of red sandstone, surrounded by some single tombstones. A couple of trees grew around it all, incasing the family grave in its midst, apparently having been planted to create a circle around it.

“Copper beeches,” Sam commented when they all stepped closer, the leaves a deep, gleaming red. Like blood, Dean thought with a shudder.

“There was a time when cremating the body was believed to completely destroy the soul and was even forbidden in certain regions,” Violet explained, a bit like a tour guide on a bus trip, “So hunters had to come up with something else. The beeches were meant to ward off evil and prevent the ghost from rising.”

“Did it work?” Sherlock wanted to know as if he were keeping a journal in his head, but Violet only shrugged, “As far as I know. Depends on how you define evil. Because at the same time this place is a center for strong fairy magic.”

“Hey,” said John who had already boldly stepped closer and started examining the inscriptions on one of the tombstones, “This one has the family crest.”

“Of course it does, John,” Sherlock huffed but joined him and bend down to run his fingertips over the intricate ingravings that had been worn down by time and weather but was still easily identified, “What's more interesting is the fact that is quite obviously features motives from the Arthurian Legend.”

“Oh, for-” Dean cursed. This was getting more and more bizarre.

“How would you know?” Sam asked, “I mean, sure, the actual dragon and the sword, but-”

“There,” Sherlock nodded to the sealed entrance of the mausoleum. It's frame was elaborately decorated, again with beech leaves framing it, and a dragon smack on the door itself, guarding a sword.

“The dragon is the same one that Arthur wore on his cape,” Sherlock observed with narrowed eyes, “And the sword is quite obviously Excalibur. Trust me, I would know.”

“He's right,” Arthur and Merlin, who had hung back at first, where now inching closer as well, “How can that be? What is their connection to us?”

“Inheritance,” Violet pointed out, “Bloodlines. It's still illegal to misuse someone else's crest – back then it was a serious crime. And I seriously doubt that they simply would have made something up.”

“So this is the real thing?” John blinked, “The Winchesters are related to the Campbells and the Campbells are descendants of- of what? A noble family?”

“It's entirely possible,” Arthur mused, “Any house swearing fealty to Camelot would have been permitted to add our sigils to its crest. That is usually some variation on the crown or the dragon. They seem to have chosen Excalibur as well.”

“Maybe it was one of your knights?” Merlin proposed, “And his family has carried on your legacy?”

“We are related to one of the Knights of the Round Table?” Dean's eyes grew wide as saucers but he couldn't help himself, “That’s mad awesome. I bet it’s Lancelot.”

Sam threw him a pitying look, “You only think that because you don’t know any of the other knights.”

Dean already opened his mouth to come up with a clever retort, but suddenly he noticed the familiar feeling of uncomfortable tension that always hung in the air after he had said something wrong. He looked over to the other men and became aware of Arthur’s tight expression as well as Merlin’s dejected one.

“Lancelot is dead,” Arthur explained somberly in answer to Dean’s questioning gaze, “He died to save us. All of us.”

There seemed to be more to the story, but for once Dean didn’t dare to pry, especially when seeing Merlin like this with his slumped shoulders and downcast eyes. He looked a bit like Sam had at age fifteen after hitting a major growth spurt, only made of skin and bones and puppy love, hair falling into his forehead and staring anywhere but at Dean’s face as his older brother pleaded and begged and threatened to please do for once as Dad said.

“I'm sorry for that,” Sam said gently; he had always been the one to find the best words in such a sitatuation, “I know it's not much of a consolation, but you can be sure that Lancelot is one of the best loved romantic heroes to ever exist and that many people still admire him. He'll never be completely forgotten.”

“I can attest to that,” the Doctor piqued up, offering a lopsided smile, “Same goes for the both of you. All of you, actually.”

“Whoa whoa, let's not praise our great deeds before we've done them,” Dean interrupted with a placating gesture, “Maybe it's not even important which knight it was. Let's just get on with this.”

“What's this thing then?” John tapped his finger against the fourth part of the crest, the circle with the illegible writing in it, “I'm not familiar with the legends, but does it ring a bell for any of you?”

“It's seems like some sort of disc,” Sherlock mused, “An amulet maybe. Merlin?”

The boy only shrugged, “I've never seen it. Knowing what's written on that would probably help.”

Could luck with that, Dean thought. The supposed amulet was featured on the mausoleum as well, as a bigger plate directly above the door, but even there the engravings made no sense, garbled gibberish to imitate some letters.

“Do you happen to know anything about it, Violet?” the Doctor questioned the young woman who was standing at the sidelines, having grown suspiciously quiet.

“Sorry,” she said mildly, “I'm having an inner nervous breakdown because my already crazy worldview got turned upside down again.”

She rubbed her hands over her eyes while her dog only whined and less that gently nudged his big head against her hip.

“It's alright, Shuck,” she told him with a little smile before addressing ther group again, “I never figured out what the disc was supposed to represent. However, judging by the fact that the Campbells inlcuded the writing but never actually wrote anything real, I'd guess that they didn't have a clue what it says either. So it was important to them, but maybe more out of sentimental value. Or they were hoping that it would come in handy one day.”

“We'd need the real disc,” Sam realized, “And long before the writing on it got worn away. That must have been ages before even this graveside was even built.”

“How important can this disc be?” Sherlock demanded, suddenly standing up from where he had been crouched to examine the grass, “We know now that the Winchesters are probably direct descendants of an Arthurian knight. What does that tell us? Can we gain anything from it?”

“Well, I once tried to pull a magic sword from a stone and it didn't work,” Dean pointed out, remembering the whole debacle, “Blood seems to have grown thin over the years.”

“We're missing something,” Sherlock hissed, tugging at his hair, “Time travel and angels, there are too many variables that are still unaccounted for, it just doesn't make sense.”

“I know a method that might offer up some more information,” Violet offered tentatively, “Though I can't guarantee that any of it will be useful.”

“Better than nothing at all, I'd say,” Dean encouraged her, “Bring it on.”

“Um, we'll have to wait for a few more hours,” she apologized, “It's best to do it during sundown.”

“I'm on it!” the Doctor declared at once, “No time like the present! Or... you know what I mean. I'm gonna get the TARDIS. Don't do anything fun while I'm not here!”

And then he was already running back down the gravel path they had come from.

“He's certainly... enthusiastic,” Violet addmited, “You gotta give him that.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Dean agreed.

The only had to wait for about five minutes until the by now familiar sound of the TARDIS landing filled the air and the blue phonebox materialised just a few feet away from the mauseleum. They all squeezed in through the door, Violet with wide eyes and Shuck with his tail between his legs.

“I've heard about this thing,” she whispered to Dean, “Other hunters and chronicle writers have mentioned it all over the years. No one seems to know whether it's a good or a bad omen.”

“Let's just say that I believe whenever the Doctor shows up you can be sure that shit is about to go down,” he whispered back, “For better or worse.”

Within moments the TARDIS rumbled back to life, though to Dean's disappointment Violet chose to hold on to a beamer with one hand and grab Shuck by the collar with the other.

“Okay, we're there, same place, but 9:20 pm!” the Doctor announced joyfully and they all spilled back out again, like a monster chugging up its breakfast. Ugh, okay, disgusting comparison.

“Wow,” Violet said, shielding her eyes against the red blaze of the sun that was suddenly halfway hidden behind the horizon, “It really worked.”

“Of course it worked, it's Time And Relative Dimension In Space,” the Doctor declared, tilting his chin up before closing the door with a snap of his fingers.

“Show-off,” Dean mouthed to Violet and she actually grinned back at him.

“Okay, what now?” Sam asked, arms crossed and judging Dean for flirting on a case. Hypocrite. He totally would have hit on Violet as well if she had a thing for giants instead of fairies. Oh, shit no, that came out wrong. Whatever. Moving on.

“Now you'll watch and marvel,” Violet promised and pulled a piece of white chalk from out of belt bag she carried around her hips. Stepping forward, she chose one of the beeches and started drawing something on the relatively smooth bark, while the others watched attentively.

“That's a faerie eye,” Sherlock realized after a few strokes, “You're going to call on fae folk for information?”

“I told you it might not be completely reliable,” she huffed, “But they know and notice things that most humans don't. You just have to ask the right questions.”

“Faes are carpricious and volatile,” the detective pointed out, “One wrong move and they'll use whatever they can find against you.”

“Yes, Sherlock,” John sighed, “You sound like you read it in a book. She sounds like she has actually dealt with them before. She knows what she is doing.”

“Thank you,” Violet acknowledged when Sherlock fell silent.

“What does it do?” Arthur asked when she stepped back to admire her work: a stilized eye surrounded by a variation of runes.

“I'll help us see the wee folk,” Violet replied, “Some people can do without, but usually the fae decide whether they want to be seen or not.”

For a few silent minutes nothing happened. Shuck had laid down in the grass and gotten comfortable while the sun slowly vanished behin the treeline until the sky in the east was already turning blue-black while the west was still bathed in crimson. Again like blood, Dean couldn't help but notice. He wasn't much one for metaphors and augury, but somehow he didn't like this at all.

The air had already grown much colder from when they had stepped into the TARDIS. It was still quite warm but for them the sudden change was more notiable. Crickets were chirring all around and fireflies had risen to settle on the leaves of bushes, tiny light bulbs in the growing dark.

And then they heard it.

Somber singing. Deep and low like ancient echoes, but strewn in between the voices of children barely refraining from giggling. It was a slow melody, like a half-frozen creek, a rustle of wind in the copper beeches, a tragic hymn though he could not quite make out any words. It was nothing like Metallica, but it was beautiful and it was terrifying.

Dean could feel the hairs on his arms rising, skin errupting into goosebumps against his will. But when he looked around to see whether the others were experiencing the same, he noticed how pale Violet had suddenly grown.

“What is it?” he asked quietly, nudging her with his elbow, and she turned to face him with wide eyes.

“There,” she said and swallowed hard, “It's a funeral march.”

And really, when he followed her gaze he could see it, too. A long procession of tiny creatures weaving through the air, a good four feet off the ground, fireflies joining them to spin around them in a lazy spiral. They were still too far away to make out any details, but Dean could see that at the head of it they were carrying a small bier on which whoever they were mourning was most likely laid.

“Seems to be a big deal, huh?” he commented idly, watching as they made their way, silent except for their ongoing song.

“You don't understand,” Violet hissed back, “It's a fairy funeral. An omen of death and upheaval. Something bad is going to happen, and soon.”

The soothing words Dean had been about to say got stuck in his throat. He knew that in comparison to other hunters he'd grown a bit blasé in the face of someone promising war and destruction. But Violet didn't strike him like the type to freak out about an old wives's tale.

“Is it really that bad?” he asked uncertainly and she nodded vehemently, “I’ve never seen one of their funerals. And I’ve never seen this many faeries in one place. I think... I think that they are carrying their king to his grave.”

“King as in... Oberon?”

“I couldn't say,” Violet shook her head, “This is... this is unprecedented. The fae folk is very perceptive in regard to their surroundings. For their king to die... there must be major changes in the supernatural world.”

And how come that the Winchesters always managed to end up at Ground Zero? They could travel through time and space and still come out wherever shit was about to hit the fan. Great, fucking great. If Violet was right, then it could mean that the Doctor had not been exaggerating when he told them about the most important mission of their lives. But Violet, strong independent Violet, who kept a big black dog as a pet, something that lesser hunters might call an harbinger of death, was obviously scared shitless of some half-naked Polly Pockets burying their king. That was not good. That was very much not good.

The procession had come closer now, their pace still leisured enough that the TARDIS Boys did not have to worry about them disappearing all of a sudden, but they still had to do something if they wanted to get some information out of the fairies.

“We have to get their attention,” he hissed over to Sam, “What do we do?”

“Haven't the faintest,” Sam answered, “You really think it's a good idea to just distract them from their funeral? Maybe they'll, like... attack us.”

Yeah, Dean could very well remember how he had been beaten up by a tiny lady. Unfortunately he did not have a microwave at hand this time. Not to mention that there were at least a thousand fairies here. He'd need a very big microwave for that and they'd probably just rip him apart first.

“I can try to reach out to them with my magic,” Merlin interferred, “The Sidhe always reacted to it.”

“Then do it,” Arthur agreed, “But be careful. We don't want them to feel threated.”

Merlin nodded and took a deep breath before closing his eyes, a look of utmost concentration on his face.

The fairies did not stop and neither did their singing cease. They simply fluttered through the air, never taking notice of the men, so slow and calm that Dean was sure he could've plucked one of them out of the air with his bare hands.

Finally, though, when they were already giving up hope on Merlin's approach, something at the head of the procession stirred. A second later a single figure left its place behind the bier and flew back to where Merlin and Arthur were waiting, standing in the air like a hummingbird, directly in front of their faces.

It was a tiny woman, much like the one Dean had encounted (and killed) all this time ago. She was wearing a see-through dress that left absolutely nothing to the imagination, her body frail and her face pretty, skin awash in what glowed like moonlight. Her hair was long and silver-white, and she had two pairs of wings like a dragonfly, iridescent and transparent. The look on her face was curious and searching as she stared into the eyes of the king and his sorcerer.

“Who are you?” she demanded to know, her voice like a bell and Dean was surprised that they could even hear her in the first place, considering her size.

Merlin swallowed and exchanged a short glance with Arthur.

“My name is Emrys,” he introduced himself, sounding more confident than he probably was, “These are my friends and companions. We have come to speak to the fae folk.”

“I _am_ the fae folk,” the woman answered haughtily, “My name is Tanaquill. But as of tomorrow I shall be Gloriana, the Faerie Queene.”

A honest to God butterfly princess. This was getting weirder and weirder by the second.

“We apologize for keeping you away from the funeral march and would like to offer our condolences,” Merlin explained smoothly, “Was it your father, the king, who died?”

“Yes,” Tanaquill tossed her hair back, “It is of no matter. They will craft my crown out of cobwebs and star shine and early dewdrops, and once the sun dyes the horizon in the morning I shall ascend the throne.”

Wow. Girl certainly had an attitude.

“But who are _you?”_ she asked, flying much closer to Arthur's face than he seemed entirely comfortable with, “You are special. Why are you so special?”

“I am King Arthur Pendragon of Camelot,” he answered, obviously stuck between refusing to take a step back and not wanting to squint at her, “We hoped you might have answers for us.”

“Answers to what sort of questions?” she asked, “I know a lot, but I do not know everything.”

That was... actually, now that they had a potential source, Dean had no idea what they even wanted to know. What would help them on this grand quest the Doctor had promised them.

“My sister, Morgana,” Arthur began tentatively, “Many years ago, she summoned something. A being of unknown origin. We are trying to find out what it might be. And what it might want.”

“How should I know?” Tanaquill chirped, sounded somewhat offended, “That's not much to go on. I cannot pluck answers from thin air like blueberries from a twig. Oh, you foolish, foolish big people, always so loud and so careless. How am I to discern one drop of rain in a thunder storm? I could, if I wanted to, but it not done easily. And it will cost you something.”

Here we go, Dean steeled himself. Time for another deal.

“What could you possibly want from us?” Sherlock interferred, his eyes narrowed; but Tanaquill didn't even glance at him when she answered.

“I want _him_ ,” she sighed and then fluttred even closer to Arthur, till she was nearly touching the tip of his nose, “I want him to remain here so he may fall in love with me and rather die than be parted from me again.”

For a moment there was stunned silence.

“Okay,” Dean said finally, “Weird.”

“Seriously,” Merlin eyed Arthur from the side, “What’s it with you and those beautiful princesses who are obsessed with you?”

Arthur ignored him, though, never taking his eyes off the queen.

“I’m married,” he told her seriously, “And I can’t stay here. I am a king myself and I have to rule over my own realm, just like you have to rule over yours.”

At that reply Tanaquill bristled like a real life Angry Bird, her white shoulders rising, tiny fists shaking, before she abrupt turned in the air and pointed to Violet who had been holding her breath until now.

“Then I want your hair,” she demanded, “I want you to cut it off so the spiders may make it into my wedding gown and weave eternal ivy and the last breath of winter and the very blue of cornflowers into it and I will be beautiful and I shall dance and sing and my prince will find me.”

“Someone watched too many Disney movies,” Dean muttered, but luckily Tanaquill wasn’t listening.

“So you want my hair?” Violet said over the princess’s fashion musings and self-consciously ran a hand through her auburn tresses, “That’s it?”

“Well, I would love to make shoes out of the soft skin of your cheeks, but those blemishes are hideous.”

“My freckles. Hideous. Right,” Violet remarked dryly and puffed out a breath of air, “Is this reall necessary?”

But Tanaquill was obviously not willing to take another no for an answer. From one second to the next, she went full on Bilbo like in the Fellowship of the Ring, her face turning dark and cruel, her hands like claws reaching out to grab.

“It is my last offer,” she hissed, “You came to ask something of me, not the other way round. I am a faerie queene, I am eternal and I am just. But never am I patient. Agree or be gone, I don't care either way.”

“Alright, alright”, Violet lifted her hands in surrender, “I get it. Hair against answers. I'm in.”

She turned to the men surrounded her, “Anyone wanna do me the honor?”

“I'll do it,” Dean offered quickly. When they were growing up he'd cut Sammy's hair often enough. The least they could do for Violet was not to butcher it completely. After all she had no reason to help them like this in the first place.

“Best kneel down,” he told her and she did so, turning her back to him and then folding her long bare legs in the dry grass.

“Don't make it too short,” she muttered, probably attempting to be quiet as to not anger Tanaquill any further.

“Well, at least it'll grow back,” he reminded her with a wry grin and pulled his hidden knife from his boot, “Can't say the same for a lost limb.”

Against her will, she chuckled, “Aren't you quite the optimistic sunshine.”

Gently, he grasped a strand of hair between his fingers and began to cut it off. The sharp blade sliced through the thick locks and he was grateful when Sam fumbled with his tiny flash light and then directed the beam at the back of Violet's neck so Dean could see what he was doing. Wouldn't do to accidentally stab her. Tanaquill probably wouldn't like any blood on her hair.

For a few minutes he worked in silence, torn between knowing that the fairy was getting impatient and not wanting that Violet ended up looking like she got run over by a lawn-mower.

“There,” he declared when he was finished, a pile of hair at his feet, “Wanna take a look in the mirror?”

“I'll save the horror for later,” Violet got up again and ran a hand over her head, fingering the uneven bits, “How do I look?”

“Like Natalie Portman in her post-V for Vendetta phase?” he told her carefully, though the comparison wasn't really apt. Violet's built made all the difference. Where the pixie cut might have made other women look frail, it accentuated the sharp lines of Violet's shoulders and cheeks, the curve of her lips more sensual among the overall fierce look on her face.

“Not bad,” Sam agreed, “Should we ever quit hunting, I can really imagine Dean flourishing in his new profession as a hair dresser.”

“Shut up,” Dean said without any venom, bending down to put his knife away again and pick up the cut off locks, turning to look at Tanaquill, “Where do you want this?”

She didn't bother to answer. Instead a flock of other fairies that had suddenly detached themselves from the procession came fluttering over and plucked the hair from his fingers, carrying it away wordlessly, probably taking it to the mothership or whatever.

“Now,” Sherlock piqued up, “Answers.”

The look of annoyance on Tanaquill's face made Dean suspect that the guy who wrote Peter Pan had actually really met a fairy at some point. Because that girl? Total Tinkerbell.

Nevertheless she tilted back her chin and gave them a challenging stare, “Has any of you ever come in contact with this being that you mention?”

Arthur and Merlin exchanged a look, “Well, yes. Indirectly.”

“Then it might have left a trace on you,” she declared, “Especially you, Emrys. Its imprints will be all over your magic if it is as powerful as you seem to believe.”

“Do what you have to do,” Merlin told her and she nodded curtly before fluttering so close that he had to close his eyes. Then she placed her palms on his left eye lid.

Nothing happened. At least it seemed like it. Then a shudder went through Tanaquill's wings, like a gush of wind on water, a painted moan escaped her, she arched her back so far it looked like it was about to snap.

“Oh!” she wailed and teetered in the air for a few seconds because all strength seemed to leave her and she helplessly fluttered down. Merlin reacted quickly, catching her in his outstreched hand.

“Your majesty,” Arthur bent down to peer at her, “What happened? Are you alright?”

“Nothing is alright, you harebrained prince,” she groaned, wings limp and an arm tossed over her face in a dramatic gesture, “He has the boy, the poor boy. And the boy has the sword and fate on his side. It's all coming to an end now All the paths that entwined can no longer be untangled.”

“But what's that suppoed to mean?” Merlin asked, sounding seriously frustrated, “Why is everyone always talking in riddles?”

“He's using them,” Tanaquill gasped, “Their love and their fear and their anger. He has it all planned and he will walk this world for years and years. You may try in the battle and you may try in the game. But you will fall and you will not escape.”

She was slowly picking herself up from Merlin's palm, straightening out her wings and gathering her dress around her.

“No more,” she said, lamenting, “I've seen enough and I'll say no more. Why have you brought me a shadow on this already dark day? You're dreadfully cruel and blindingly stupid. Die if you cannot save yourselves, but do not bring your misery into my home.”

And with that she was gone. No flutter of wings, no blaze of light. Just gone, and with her the entire funeral march.

“Great,” Dean groaned, “We went through all of this trouble so she could tell us how dumb we are?”

“She's a fairy,” Sam pointed next to him, “They are known for being cryptic. What did you expect, a manual how to defeat the Big Bag, complete with illustrated instructions.”

“Would have been nice,” Dean huffed, though he new fair well that nothing in their life was ever nice and easy.

“He's right,” Violet supplied, looking not as broken up over the hair in exchanfe for bullshit-deal as one might have expected her to, “She's a fairy. You have to second guess everything she says. Her truth is warped and manifold, but it's still the truth.”

“Admittedly, you're not making much more sense like that,” Sam said.

“Wait, wait, wait,” John who had been silently watching the exchange interfered, “There's something else I don't get. Tanaquill, right? Gloriana? The Faerie Queene? By Edmund Spenser?”

Everyone looked at him quentioningly; even Sherlock seemed uncertain.

“It's an epic poem,” John explaind, “I had to read parts of it way back in school. And it was written, I don't know, in the late 16th century?”

“So?” Dean asked, “Wanna go all Shakespeare on us or what?”

“It tell the story of Gloriana the Faerie Queene who used to be called Tanaquill. About how she meets King Arthur and his knights. About he falls in love with her,” John made a wild gesture, “How can there be a poem from over four-hundred years ago how she is already queen when her father apparently only just died? Even if Spenser actually came into contact with a fairy he would still have to traveled through time to know what just happened.”

But Violet shook her head, “Highly unlikely. For the fae Time is not linear. You have to imagine it like a beam of white light being fractured by a prism. And then one of those fractures hits another prism and so on, until eventually one or more of those fractures beams return to the very first prism. It creates a circular motion and overlapping realities. Now that Arthur has met Tanaquill it will become part of the fairies' history and the encounter will circle back in time. But it also falsifies the facts. At one point the poet must've come across Tanaquill and she remembered what had not actually happened yet and even more what she had wanted to happen. That's why in the poem Arthur is in love with her.”

“That's astounding,” the Doctor's eyes were wid, “It should be creating a paradox, but it doesn't. I've never come across anything like it.”

“They are fairies. The rules of men do not apply to them,” Merlin provided, “They live between the worlds, between time and immortality. That's why you can't return to your realm once you've eaten something in theirs. That's why the Sidhe guide Avalon. They are eternal.”

“Which means that everything she just told us is even more complicated to decipher,” Sherlock concluded, “Because we cannot know whether it it's in the past or still in the future.”

“So we only know that at some point shit is going down and we have to prevent it,” Dean rolled his eyes, “Which is exactly as much as we knew before. I would not have needed to summon a friggin' fairy for that.”

“The funeral march, though,” Violet amended thoughtfully, “As I said, it's an omen and it was shown to us. Unlike them our consciousness is fixed in time. It was no coincidence that we witnessed the procession. It's a harbinger of change and transformation. Whatever you're on to is not simply dangerous on a life or death kind of way. It has... seeped into the very roots of magic, it's influencing things. The faeries and feel it and they fear it, and I'm sure other species can as well. I don't know what you boys got yourselves into, but it sure sounds like you might want to clean things up again.”

Whoa, déjà vu. Dean's life was like Ground Hog Day – Apocalyptic style.

“So where to we start then?” Sam asked, “She was saying something about a sword and a boy? What boy?”

“I think I know who she meant,” Merlin suggested, his voice low, “But we'll have to go back to Camelot.”

“Good enough for me,” the Doctor announced, “Usually I have much less to go on. Everyone, hop back into the TARDIS. We're going for another drive.”

“Hard to believe, huh?” Dean asked quietly when he noticed Violet's wide-eyed stare, “I've been in the life for over thirty years and there's still barely a day that passed without anything that completely floors me.”

“I've been in that thing,” Violet shook her head disbelievingly, “I've seen that it can travel through time. But to thing that it's actually possible to... to go to all these places, to meet all these people. It would drive me insane.”

Dean blinked, “Why?”

“Because of the responsibility,” she answered, “Knowing what's going to happen and yet not trying to intercept. Knowing that some things just have to be.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean gave a little shrug, “If it's any consolation, not everything is written in stone. There's still... free will and all that. Sometimes that makes all the difference.”

She smiled at him, “Talking from experience?”

He laughed, “Actually, yes, I am.”

“Well, then,” a twinkle came to her eye, “Do me a favor, get your arse into that phone box and prevent whatever had Madame Butterfly's knickers in a twist.”

“Will do,” he agreed and, trying his luck, he asked, “Any chance I can get your number?”

But she only laughed in his face, “No. It's already enough you know where I live. And if you should ever show up without an invitation, Shuck will be happy to welcome you.”

Like a shadow the huge dog had appeared by her side, sitting on his hunches, docile as a lamb, intimidating as a hellhound.

Dean swallowed, “I think I'll pass. But anyway, thanks for your help. It's nice to come across fellow hunter who are not out for my scalp after our first meeting.”

“Never say never,” she said and winked at him, “Now shoo, your friends are already waiting for you.”

She nodded over to where Sam was leaning against the outside wall of the TARDIS, waving at her in goodbye but sending an exsperated look at Dean.

“It's a time machine, what difference does it make when we fly off a little later?” Dean frowned and ran a hand through his hair that was about as long as Violet's now was, “Anyway, you've really done a lot. So... sorry for the chemo look.”

She lifted her shoulders in an elegant shrug, making a no big deal-face, “It'll regrow. Not like I lost a limb or anything.”

“Wise words from a wise man, that,” he told her, “You should do well to remember them.”

“I don't think there is anything about this day I'll ever be able to forget,” she confessed and then pushed against his shoulder to make him turn around.

With a final smile Dean joined his brother and climbed back into the TARDIS.

 

**~o0o~**

**Next Stop: Camelot**

**~o0o~**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Inspired by “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches” (which is actually set in Winchester) because Violet Hunter was probably my favourite of Holmes’s clients. And her surname obviously destined her to be a hunter as well. Holmes’ cases also frequently contain big, bad mastiffs, so I wanted to toy with that fact and turn the mystical Black Shuck, who is an omen of death and despair, into a well-trained, over-sized lapdog. The fairy funerals really are bad omens as well.
> 
> Violet has to pay Gloriana with her hair, because in “The Copper Beeches” she is also forced to cut off her vibrantly colored tresses.
> 
> The Faerie Queene is an epic poem that Edmund Spenser never finished. I've never read it, but the idea of it fit my story so sorry for any mistakes because of that.
> 
> Next chapter will feature the story of Gwaine's family, a thief in the throne room and the return of the most noble of knights.


	10. Lancelot of the Lake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Who do you claim to be, man?” he asked loudly, standing up from his chair so he could better face him, “And who are you in truth?”  
> “I claim to be your loyal knight and servant,” the man spoke up and finally lifted his head, straightening in the hold of the guards, “For I am Sir Lancelot returned to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the insanely long wait. I had this lying around three pages away from completion, but it's so difficult to keep straigt n my head, what I know, what the reader knows, what the characters individually know and what has happened in the series. @__@
> 
> Furthermore, I came up with this storyline long before Season 5 of Merlin aired which means that Mordred was never one of Camelot's knights, Elyan is still alive etc.

  **Chapter 8 - Lancelot of the Lake**  


 

“ _I like to taste the wine_  
I swore to save the King  
Two jewels I am devoted to  
When the darkness closes in”

Lancelot by Grave Digger

 

**Camelot, summer 516 AD**

 

When the TARDIS finally stopped rumbling and the Doctor declared that they had reached their destination, Arthur couldn't open the door fast enough.The gold light of evening streamed through the threshold, blinding him for a short moment.

Then he came face to face with a beloved sight.

“Arthur!” Gwen cried, pushing Elyan aside who had moved to shield her, and threw herself into his arms, “What happened?”  
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, breathing in her scent.

“It's a long story,” he simply said, “The only thing that matters for now is that we have been returned safely.”

And not only that. Judging by the confused stares of the knights surrounding them, the Doctor had not simply taken them back to Camelot's court-yard, but to the exact moment when Merlin and Arthur had diappeared into Morgana's portal.

Next to him, Merlin seemed to be thinking the same, blinking as he took in the scene around them.

“Does that mean that right now our past selves are being held captive by Morgana in the Valley of the Fallen Kings?” he asked, scratching his head.

“That is correct,” the Doctor chirped, pushing past them to get outside of his blue box and spinning around in a circle, his arms outstretched, breathing in deep with his eyes fixed on the walls of Camelot Castle, “It's so good to be back. I've really missed it.”

“You've been here before?” Arthur asked in suprise, but the Doctor merely nodded enthusiastically, “Oh yes, once or twice. You wouldn't remember.”

“Sire,” Leon had stepped forward cautiously, “Pardon the question, but... who are these people? And what is this... thing?”

“It's bigger on the inside,” Gwen marveled, peering over Arthur's shoulder and into the TARDIS, “And... Arthur, what are you wearing?”

Funnily enough, Gwaine was still holding Arthur's red cape that had torn when they tried to hold on to Merlin. It really couldn't have been more that a few minutes since they had been abducted, otherwise Gwen would have already called Gaius and rallied the knights. As of now everyone was still standing with their mouths hanging open.

“It's... a long story,” Arthur repeated, knowing that once he started answering single questions it would only raise many more, “But an important one. We shall gather the Knights of the Round Table. There is much to discuss.”

Gwen looked unsure for a moment, but then nodded in determination.

“I shall perpare everything,” she promised him, “Do you want me to order up some food for you and your... companions?”

Arthur was not overly hungry, but he didn't want to speak for any of the other men, so he simply nodded, “That would be most kind.”

She smiled and then turned away from him, waving Elyan along to accompany her.

“Not bad,” Dean said in appreciation, hissing when his brother jabbed him in the side.

“Dean!” Sam sounded appaled, “You can't hit on Queen Guinevere.”

“I wasn't hitting on her,” Dean defended himself, “I was merely, ah, taking note of the fact that she is really as beautiful as the dead poets always describe her.”

Arthur felt a little faint. Hundreds of years into the future, people would still read poetry about his wife. They would still tell stories about Merlin's magic, and Camelot, and Morgana's betrayal. Ending up in a world so different from his own was definitely much more confusing when people spoke of you like they knew you, knew your motivations and the story of your life. Arthur did not enjoy experiencing that, though there was a certain flattery in it. And to think that Merlin the idiot had been right when he kept waxing on about how Arthur would become the greatest king Albion had ever known.

He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. For now he had other things to concentrate on. Namely Morgana's scheming and finding out whether she had really lost control of that mysterious being she had summoned. She was a lot like their father in that regard – always thinking up grand plans and being caught off guard when they lost their grip. And Arthur, always ending up having to right their wrongs. He was growing weary of it all.

He motioned for the others to follow him into the castle. Safe for Merlin who was at home here, they were all staring around them in wonder, taking in the people, the statues, the tapestry. The people stared back just as curiously, never having seen anyone in such strange clothes. Sherlock was attempting to be subtle, but even he couldn't quite hide his awe. Arthur felt a flutter of pride in his stomach, squaring his shoulders.

When they reached the hall that housed the Round Table, he beckoned them to take a seat, despite the fact that the chairs were usually reserved for the knights. They all sat down hesitantly.

Merlin, however, remained standing behind Arthur's right side, probably out of habit and obligation as a servant.

“Merlin”, Arthur waved him closer in exasperation and then pressed him down on the chair in which Gaius normally sat, while the one on his left remained empty for Guinevere.

“Now that your secret is out we might as well openly acknowledge it,” Arthur told him, “Gaius was my father's trusted in all magical matters, you are mine. It's been a long time since any of the kingdoms had a proper court sorcerer instead of some hapless joker whose tricks were limited to juggling balls and pulling doves out of his sleeves.”

He thought nothing of the comment, so he was surprised to see that Merlin postitively blushed and ducked his head to hide it. It occurred to Arthur that up until yesterday the stupid ass had still believed that his king was completely oblivious to his servant's magic. Only Merlin could be that dense.

“Sit straight, will you,” he ordered him, though he couldn't quite keep the fondness out of his voice, “You've been enjoying the company of kings and queens for a long time now. It's time that you learned how to behave like a royal advisor.”

At that Merlin's only turned redder, but it was accompanied by a blinding smile. Arthur smiled back. The idiot was so easy to please.

Only a few moments later Gwen swept into the hall, followed by his most trusted knights, Gaius and several servants carrying in plates of food and drink.

Everyone shuffled around a bit, thrown off by the fact that complete strangers had been allowed to take seat at the Round Table, but finally everything was at least half-way in order.

“My friends,” Arthur began, though he was not yet sure how he should even make anyone believe the outrageous story he was about to tell, “As most of you may have witnessed, Merlin and I have just been pulled into a magic portal that my sister Morgana created and spirited us away to the Valley of the Fallen Kings. However, before she could do us much harm, we were saved by these brave men.”

He nodded his head to indicate to the five time travelers.

“The Doctor is in possession of a contraption that allows one to go from one point in time to another, almost like magic.”

A shocked gasp escaped some of the people gathered, though Arthur couldn't quite tell whether it was the time-travel that bewildered them or the fact that the king was allying himself with someone who might just be a sorcerer.

“He took us into the future, many hundred years from our present, because he told us that we had to unite forces in order to overcome the difficulties ahead of us.”

Some more gasps, though more muted than before.

“It seems that this time, Morgana's intentions do not simply threaten the realm of Camelot and our neighboring kingdoms, but possibly the fate of the whole world and all of time.”

The words did not come easy. Arthur still had trouble thinking in such a big scale and he was not sure how to convinve his people for they had not seen all the things that he had.

“It seems that Morgana summoned a being that wanted to take a hold of Merlin's body in order to walk this world. As you can see we managed to escape in time,” he continued, “Nevertheless it is of utmost importance that we do not give her and hers another oppurtunity to try anything like this again, whether with Merlin or anyone else.”

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Merlin fidgeting uncomfortably. He paused, “What is it, Merlin?”

“I have a suspicion,” he admitted, clearing his throat to make his voice sound true in the great hall, “The words of the Fairy Queen... they made me think of the druid boy Mordred. And the possibility that he may become a vessel in my stead. It's... he's very powerful. And... his fate and yours, they are intertwined.”

Merlin looked pained when he said this and Arthur could only stare for a moment.

Mordred. He remembered the young child he had smuggled out of Camelot all those years ago, his pale gaze that seemed to peer right into him, old beyond his years and somewhat unnerving.

“But Morgana does not know that,” he said, feeling his muscles clench uncomfortably, “How would she know that?”

“How does Morgana know anything?” Guinevere spoke up, a hint of sadness swaying in her voice, “She's got allies and lackeys all over.”

Arthur knew all that, of course. Sometimes Morgana's transformation into a smooth temptress unsettled him more than even her thirst for revenge. But she's always had that, he realizes, this easy tendency of batting her eyelashes at their father, of swaying her hips for her favored knights or simply smiling benevolently at the footfolk. She would have truly made a great queen, if it weren't for her irrational hatred and insanity.

“So, let's say that Morgana has got this boy,” Gwaine mused aloud, “How quickly will she adept her plans to use him instead of Merlin?”

“She's swift,” Arthur declared, “Nothing will deter her for long. She might be acting as we speak.”

“Then what's keeping us?” Dean asked, drumming his fingers on the table top.

“Have you looked around?” Sam frowned at him, “There's forest everywhere and no Google Maps. Where should we even start?”

“Perhaps in the Valley of the Fallen Kings, if that is where she took you before, your Grace,” Sir Leon propose prudently.

“On the other hand, she might think it an too obvious choice if Merlin and the King escaped before,” Elyan objected.

“Nevertheless we have to consider the fact that only mere minutes have passed since our past selves rescued the two of them and disappeared in the TARDIS,” Sherlock threw in, “She will wonder who we where and how we even managed such a clean get-away.”

“I thought she was a crazy witch?” John asked bluntly, “You'd think she'd be less fazed if her hostages disappeared into thin air. I mean, now that I know magic exists, nothing can really surprise me anymore, I think.”

“Oh, we'll see about that,” Sherlock said and his smirk was somewhat worrisome.

In that moment the doors to the hall were opened rather unceremoneously.

“My king!” two guards had entered, detaining a man between them who did not seem to struggle but kept his head down, dressed in simple rough-spun drab, his hair messy, “This imposter has been caught when he was trying to enter though the gates, claiming that he needed to speak with you at once, refusing to leave.”

This was not an unusual occurrence. Sometimes commoners would appear to demand something of the crown, usually things that Arthur was unable to give, such as rain or a better harvest. Those people were not supposed to be treated that roughly. But it was the word imposter that caught his attention. For assuming someone else's identity was a serious offence.

Nevertheless Arthur had more urging matter to attend to at the moment. And yet, something was nagging at him, something that made him curious about this stranger.

“Who do you claim to be, man?” he asked loudly, standing up from his chair so he could better face him, “And who are you in truth?”

“I claim to be your loyal knight and servant,” the man spoke up and finally lifted his head, straightening in the hold of the guards, “For I am Sir Lancelot returned to you.”

Several gasps sounded through the hall, the loudest, doubtlessly, coming from the Queen herself, though she merely clung on to her armrests instead of throwing herself into the man's arms. Irrationally, a spark of jealously ignited in Arthur's belly though he furiously quenched it.

He looked at the man before him. The face was familiar and dear, that much was true. Lancelot looked healthy and hale, though his clothes seemed like he had made them from a turnip sack. The last time he had returned from death, he had been wearing splending garb, dressed like a proper knight. The last time he had been a mindless drone sent by Morgana, intended to separate Guinevere and Arthur. The last time he had succeeded.

This time he would not.

“I've seen my friend die more than once,” the King declared, “I had hoped that was enough. You seem to want to prove me wrong.”

“I wish you no harm, sire,” Lancelot inclined his head, “I came to warn you of a greater ill, but I understand your misgivings. Let me tell you my tale and decide for yourself.”

“And poison our ears with your words?” Sir Bors asked brashly, “Aye, that's sound lovely.”

But Gwaine jabbed him in the side.

“Let the King decide,” he hissed. Arthur could not fault him. Of all his knights, Leon, Gwaine, Elyan, Percival and Lancelot had grown close friends, with Merlin and Arthur along for the ride. They had been a strange little group, but they had fought and laughed with each other so many times that they were more than just brothers-in-arms.

“Let's start with the most curious thing then,” he spoke, inclining his head towards the supposed Lancelot, “How are you alive?”

“The Lady sent me,” Lancelot's voice answered without hesitation.

Arthur's brow immediately creased, “What? Morgana?”

“No,” the man wearing Lancelot's face shook his head, brown curls moving slightly, “The Lady of the Lake. She cannot leave the water herself, so she has sent me to warn you.”

“Lady of the Lake?” Arthur repeated, “I have never heard such name. Who is she, a sorceress?”

“She is a spirit living in the lake about five miles east of Camelot,” came the reply, “She is powerful, but kind. She told me that Freya sends Merlin her love.”

There was a bit of a stunned moment. Girls didn't send Merlin their love. Girls winked at Merlin and then turned their eyes on Percival or Leon.

Arthur cleared his throat and pointedly did not look at his manservant, “Merlin, do you know anything about this... Lady or Freya or whoever?”

Merlin chuckled nervously, “Yes. Yes, I do, in fact.”

“Would you like to elaborate or shall it be the stocks to pass some time?”

Merlin let out an exaggerated sigh, before diving into a lengthy explanation, “Freya was a cursed girl who had magic and whom- well, she died. I put her to rest on the lake. I noticed that there was magic gathering there later on, but it never felt malevolent so I never paid much attention. Then, when Morgana ressurected Lancelot and he died, I brought him to the lake as well. His... his ashes must've sunken into the water or... or his immortal soul.”

“She took me in and nursed me,” Lancelot added in a gentle tone, “She loved me like a mother her child. She built a body for me and breathed life into it. And here I stand before you.”

Arthur couldn't help but stare, because maybe... maybe this was truly- But hoping hurt too much.

“Gaius,” he said, harsher than intended, “Have you ever heard anything like this?”

“Of spirits haunting or inhabiting sources of natural magic, yes,” the old physician responded slowly, “Of men being remade quite so... so completely, I couldn't say, but... in the past few years I have seen many things that I might not have thought possible before. Half of them are in this room right now.”

Of course, Arthur knew was he meant.

Guinevere, a serving girl, now Queen of Camelot. Baseborn men sitting next to sons of lords, around a round table that spoke of equality, united by a common cause. Strangers from the future. A being from a different planet. And Merlin, a hapless boy from a meaningless village, the King's most important friend and advisor, a wielder of magic that apparently would still be spoken of for centuries to come.

Arthur had traveled through time today. So why shouldn't Lancelot be able to return from the dead?

And still, he was wary.

“Merlin,” he said and indicated towards the man still held by the guards, “Do your... your thing.”

Merlin frowned up at him, “My thing?”

“You know,” Arthur wiggled his fingers slightly, “Your thing.”

“Oh,” Merlin nodded in understanding, “Good idea.”

And so Merlin got up and stepped in front of Lancelot.

“This might tickle,” he warned and placed a hand on the man's chest, but Lancelot only smiled at him, “You told Arthur. Good.”

“Yea, not quite,” Merlin ducked his head, and again Arthur felt jealously boil up in him.

Lancelot knew! Lancelot had known all along while Arthur had to figure it out all by himself and Merlin thought he was being subtle while believing that he'd get his head cut off if someone caught him.

Now Merlin merely whispered a word in the language of the druids, his eyes glowing like molten gold for a moment, before he stepped back again and looked at Arthur.

“There are traces of magic within him,” he confirmed, “From Freya, like he said. And... possibly from me.”

“How did traces of your magic get into him?” Arthur demanded, feeling somewhat petulant.

“It happens,” Merlin shrugged, “You've got quite a lot of my magic in you as well. Comes from having to save you all the time. Don't worry, Gaius, Gwen and probably half of your knights aren't all that different.”

“That sounds naughty,” Dean piped up casually and Arthur turned his head back towards the round table.

Coming face to face with many horrified, angry and shocked expressions, however, reminded him of the fact that he had forgotten something. Namely that most of the people present still thought that magic was outlawed and were only now realizing that they had had a sorceror among them this whole time. And that the king had be aware of it.

“I am confused,” Sir Bors declared, sounding like a lost child while Percival only cursed, pulled out a couple of coins and tossed them to Elyan who merely grinned, “Told you. I wouldn't follow a king this blind.”

“You were betting whether Arthur knew?” Guinevere seemed outraged, “You could have told me!”

“You knew about his magic as well?” Arthur stared at her, “Did everyone know?”

“Leon here wouldn't believe it,” Gwaine laughed, grabbing the younger knight around the shoulders and shaking him enthusiastically, “Thought we were all just really damn lucky all of the time.”

Merlin, however, had grown red in the face.

“You all knew?” he was positively shaking, his gaze fixed on the floor, “All this time I was- I had to lie to you and go behind your backs and risks Gaius' and Lancelot's trust and- and my life, and you knew and never said a thing so you could- what? Bet on whether Arthur would have be hanged for being a sorceror and a traitor?”

And just like that the jovial mood shifted to something much more grim.

Arthur... Arthur had grown up, steadily getting used to the weight upon his shoulders. Merlin, though, had been raised in a world that shunned magic, born to a mother who knew nothing of it, sent into the lion's den and becoming playmate of the lion's cub. And it had been a dangerous game they had been playing, at least when Uther had still been alive.

“Merlin,” Arthur said and lowered his voice a little, approaching him carefully.

“I have never resented you for not confiding in me,” he confessed, “Instead it should have been me to tell you that I already knew. While my father was still alive, I was worried that if you grew more comfortable around me you would also grow more careless. I didn't dare put you in a position that might make your exposure more likely. And even afterwards... I didn't know how to tell you. Didn't know how to explain it to the court. I was scared and full of doubt.”

Then he turned to Lancelot who had finally been surrendered by the guards, staightening up to his full height, young and handsome as ever.

“And I did you wrong as well, my friend,” Arthur apologized, “You were the first of my knights, the first to truly pledge his loyalty to me instead of to my father. And I shall always remember that.”

“I thank you, sire,” Lancelot bowed deeply, “And I have retuned to stay true to my pledge as well. I have come to warn you.”

Arthur waved for a servant to pull up another chair, before gesturing for Merlin and Lancelot to sit down at the table; it seemed they had a lot to discuss.

“Warn us of what?” he asked, noting how Guinevere grabbed hold of Lancelot's forearm, squeezed it and pulled back, a quick watery smile flittering over her face.

I have treated them both unfairly, he reminded himself, Out of petty jealousy and my own insecurities.

Love and trust had to go both ways.

“Of the Lady Morgana’s schemes,” Lancelot replied and no one seemed overly surprised at that revelation.

“You come in an oppurtune moment, then,” Arthur told him, “We were just discussing what she might have planned.”

“I am aware of that,” Lancelot nodded slightly, “But I might know more than you do.”

“Such as?”

“The Lady Morgana has been planning for months. She has been at Caerlon Castle.”

Arthur sat up straight, “Is Queen Annis alright?”

“I believe so,” Lancelot answered, “But her target was not the Queen herself. It was the Queen’s sister, the Lady Anna.”

“What?” surprisingly enough Gwaine jumped up, an expression of utter fury on his face, “What did she want from her?”

Everyone stared at him.

“Anything we should know?” Elyan asked uncertainly, aiming for humorous, but just as taken off guard as everybody else upon seeing their usually easy-going friend so enraged.

“She is my mother!” Gwaine exclaimed, his handsome features twisted into a grimace, not apparently not only in anger but in anxiety as well, “What reason does Morgana have to threaten my mother?!”

“Calm yourself, Gwaine,” Arthur lifted a hand, though he felt a lump for in his throat, “What are you talking about? You are the son of Lady Anna? The nephew of King Caerlon?”  
Caerlon whom I killed upon the advice of my own treacherous uncle, Arthur thought, nausea welling up inside of him. And here he’d thought he gotten that particular part of his guilty past behind him.

“My father was Sir Lot of Lothian,” Gwaine explained hastily, “He was one of Caerlon's bannerman but angered him in some way. But even when my father died for him in battle, Caerlon remained cold and turned my mother away when she asked him for help. I have forfeited my family’s name and title to dissociate myself from that so-called nobility.”

Arthur swallowed hard. He had never suspected any of this. The only way that might have given away Gwaine’s origin were his excellent fighting skill, the way he handled swords and other weapons that was far above the capabilities of an untrained commoner.

“I knew that after Caerlon’s death my mother sought out her sister again,” Gwaine continued, visibly forcing himself to not fall back into a frenzy, “She took my sister Deidra with her, and-“

Gwaine broke off as if he had been about to say too much.

“Both your mother and your sister are well,” Lancelot reassured him, “As are your half-brothers Gareth and Gaheris.”

Upon the mention of his younger brothers, Gwaine seemed to wince slightly. Arthur believed to know why. Every now and then a few bits of the gossip Geoffrey tried to teach and sell him as ‘the history of the surrounding gentry and royalty’ actually got stuck in Arthur’s head and so he was fairly certain that Lady Anna’s affair with the much younger Sir Lamorak had been the reason for the two illegitimate sons. Arthur couldn’t blame her, though. No one ever seemed to hold the fathers responsible in such matters. Had anyone ever found out about Morgana’s heritage, everyone would have sneered at Lady Vivienne. Uther’s own involvement would have paled in comparison to her adultery.

“That means you are actually Gavin of Lothian?” Arthur connected the dots, “The lost son?”

Gwaine scowled, “I burnt all bridges and gave up that name.”

“But what would Morgana want from them if they are only impoverished nobility?” Guinevere asked, “Annis only became Queen when she married Caerlon. Did they have anything in their possession Morgana desired?”

“They did indeed,” Lancelot answered, “She wanted information from Lady Anna. About a child born near twenty years ago.”

“My father's bastard,” Gwaine spoke up and in his voice there was such venom in his tone that it startled Arthur.

“I never knew your father was one for dalliances,” he said, trying to sound placid, but Gwaine only huffed.

“You must've been a child if you ever saw him,” he replied, “Lothian was always sworn to Caerlon, though not always the other way round. My father would have had no reason to venture to Camelot. But you are right, he was faithful to my mother and kind to both me and my sister. Then, however, he changed. He withdrew from us, became short-tempered and volatile. Sometimes he was almost lucid, seemed rueful and contrite. There were... talks of a girl. He said she seduced him, that he had not wanted it. But many a man says that. Either way, she ended up pregnant. It was about the same time my father angered King Caerlon enough to have us chased from our own lands. A few months later my father died. I tried to find this child, tried to offer the girl a chance at a better life, but I never heard of them again.”

“You couldn't have,” Lancelot told him calmly, “For she did not want to be found. Your father spoke true when he claimed the girl seduced him. For she was the sorceress Morgause and Mordred the child born to her.”

There was a beat of silence. Then everything erupted into furious outcries.

“So... Mordred is Gwaine's half-brother,” Sam mused quietly over the rumble of voices, “But who is Morgause?”

“Morgana's evil half-sister,” Percival provided helpfully, “Or, you know, eviler.”

“Which makes Morgana Mordred's aunt,” Sherlock nodded to himself as if he had expected this all along, “Instead of his mother, as portraited in the later legends.”

“And I thought Dad was an ass for not telling us about Adam,” Dean huffed, leaning back in his chair.

Arthur was, admittedly, somewhat overwhelmed by all the news. Furthermore he was wondering how it was all connected. Because something told him that it was no coincidence that Morgana had tried to find her sister's son even before she tried to summon this angel or whatever being they were dealing with.

“It's her back-up plan,” Merlin realized suddenly, “She worried that she would not be able to use me as a vessel. So she sought for someone who might rival my magic. Someone who might be possessed instead.”

That still didn't answer all the questions, though. Had Morgana known that the child she was looking for was Mordred? Morgause must've told her about her son. But then why would she go and seek out Lady Anna?

Arthur curses inwardly. His sister always had to be two steps ahead of him. Up till now it seemed that only Merlin's magic and utter luck had prevented him from dying at her hands. However, now she knew about Merlin's magic as well. And so they could no longer surprise her.

“We should ride out and search for her,” Gwaine demanded, his fist clenched on the table, “I cannot have her threaten my family.”

His ire was understandable. Here he was, at first resisting to become a knight in the first place because he had oviously already been disappointed by another king. And now he was getting sucked into royal schemes yet again. Whatever Morgause had begun when she seduced Sir Lot and broke apart his family, it was now catching up to Gwaine once more.

“I second that,” Dean nodded, “My butt is itching from sitting around all day. We've already done research and still haven't figured out all that much more. Why don't we go squeeze the answers out of that Morgana chick.”

“First we have to find her, Dean,” Sam groaned again.

“You want to charge headlong into battle and try to engage one of the greatest sorceresses of all time?” Sherlock cocked an eyebrow at the hunters, “And what do you think your chances of survival are?”

“Well, maybe we are lucky, pull a Harry Potter and get away with a lightening scar,” John said jokingly, “Oh, c'mon, I know you've read that books. You're only frustrated because you couldn't immediately tell the ending.”

“Can we focus at the subject at hand, please,” the Doctor interjected, “Fate of the world at stake here.”

“The Doctor is right, “Arhur lifted a hand to make everyone quiet down, “But first: Leon, bring me Clarent from the treasury, Leon.”

“Sire?” Leon asked, tilting his head a little in question, though already standing up from his chair.

“I wish to bestow a gift on my new friends,” Arthur explained though he knew that describing them as friends might be a bit of an exaggeration as of yet, “They may not be able to stay with us at court in the future, but they have saved my life in the past. It is the least I can do to grand them this honor.”

“Clarent?” Sherlock had leant forward in his chair, eyes shining, “The sword traditionally used for knightenings. You want to make us knights of the Round Table.”

Arthur smiled as all the others straightened up as well, obviously surprised.

“Let it not be said that the King does not reward courage and loyalty,” he told them and nodded for Leon to go and get Clarent. There might be no time for a ceremony, but he doubted that any of these men would mind overly much. They didn't seem to care for grandeur. Arthur preferred it this way as well; after all Lancelot, Percival, Elyan and Gwaine had been knightened for their heart in battle, not the blood of their families.

Arthur noted that particularly Sherlock was practically thrumming with excitement while John only regarded his friend with a cocked eyebrow, “So, Mycroft threatens you with knighthood, but when it comes from Arthur it's an honor?”

“Don't be ridiculous, John,” Sherlock replied, “Of course it's an honor. We'll be knights of Camelot. How an you possibly compare that to a title that gets annointed to people like Elton John.”

“Do we get to wear armor, too?” Dean asked excitedly, “I've always wanted to wear armor.”

“I bet Charlie would gladly take you along to one of her LARP festivals,” Sam smiled at him, “But I believe actual medieval armor is kind of constricting. And no real proctection again magic. Plaid and leather will have to do.”

“Boo,” Dean pouted, “Destroy my dreams.”

“Sire!” Leon, who had silently left to follow up on Arthur's order burst back into the hall, “Clarent has been stolen!”

“Stolen?” Arthur frowned, “How would you know?”

“It is no longer in the treasury,” Leon answered, “But the treasurer assured me that it was still there in the morning. No one has been in there. I see no other explanation. It must have been a sorcerer.”

Arthur ground his teeth, “What would a sorcerer need a sword for?”

“It was Morgana,” Sherlock spoke up, his voice strangely flat. Everyone turned to face him.

“How can you be sure?” Guinevere asked.

“Morgana or Mordred, it had to be one of them,” the detective assured them, “It's... it's mentioned in the legends. That they steal Clarent.”

Arthur did not like this. He did like stranger know about his future while he was left in the dark. He did not like that there was obviously something Sherlock was not telling them.

“Then we have yet another reason to find my sweet sister,” he decided, “Let us waste no more time.”

He glanced out the window. It was getting dark, the sun almost hidden behind the horizon. A

search in the dark was unlikely to yield any results, but a nervous tugging in the pit of his stomach told him that they had to act fast.

“Sir Elyan, you stay here and protect your sister,” Arthur told the man, “It wouldn't be the first time Morgana has tried to get to her. Sir Bors, you are in charge of preparing the other knights and guards in case of an attack. They may have the night on their side, but we have the castle. I prefer to keep it that way.”

He gave a sidelong glance at Lancelot before turning to a servant, “See to it that Sir Lancelot is appropiately dressed. Give him a sword and whatever else he may require. Leon, Percival, Gwaine, you accompany me.”

“What about me?” Merlin asked hastily, jumping up from his chair and nearly toppling it over, “I have to come along.”

“Considering that you always come along even when you have specific orders not to do so, I was taking that fact for granted,” Arthur said in fond exasperation and was pleased to see Arthur grin.

“Hey, aren't you forgetting us?” Dean complained, “We can fight.”

“But you don't know your way around Camelot,” Percy told him.

“You can come along, too,” Arthur conceded, “Your expertise might be needed. Now follow me, the earlier we start, they earlier this will hopefully be done.”

He had never doubted his own words more than he did in that very moment.

Minutes later found them out on the court-yard where the TARDIS was still standing.

He was still wearing the clothes that the time machine had provided him with this morning, but Sam had been right – Armor didn't do much good against magic. He did shrug on some chain mail, though. Morgana's lackey were known for trying to riddle him with crossbow arrows.

“Have all of you ridden a horse before?” he asked his new companions when the squires brought up the saddled animals and he recalled that there had been a definite lack of horses in the future as people seemed to move around in cages of metal.

“Yes,” they all answered dutifully.

John sent Sherlock an askance look, “You, too?”

“I played polo in my youth,” Sherlock explained curtly, tilting his chin up a little.

John couldn’t help but snicker, “Why am I not surprised?”

“Um, question,” Sam raised his hand hesitantly as if he weren't tall enough to even dwarf Percival, “We are eleven men. On eleven horses. Won't they hear us coming from miles off?”

“We will split up,” Arthur replied, “Percy is right. The knights know the forest, but you don't.”

He took them all in, considering their strength and possible weaknesses.

“Percival, you go with Sam and Dean,” he decided, “Gwaine and Leon accompany Sherlock and John. Doctor, you will come with me, Merlin and Lancelot.”

It was best this way. Sam and Dean seemed to get along fine with Percival and they were all good warriors on their own, so there wouldn’t be any issues of someone refusing to follow orders. Leon would lead the second party in case Gwaine wouldn’t be able to keep a cool head, and they could look out for Sherlock and John who were obviously not quite used to this kind of physical fighting. Merlin would come with him, of course; Merlin would _always_ come with him, if only because for once Arthur felt that he had to protect his friend from unknown evil. The Doctor apparently resented violence, so they would have to watch his back. And Arthur was, admittedly, not quite willing to let Lancelot out of his sight yet.

“If you are not careful and almost get yourself killed again, I will make you sleep in the antechamber,” Guinevere threatened him, holding his hand to her cheek.

Arthur smiled, “If I almost get killed, I'm sure Gaius will insist on having his patient be as comfortable as possible.”

“Don't get me involved in your marriage, my King,” Gaius protested from where he was standing in front of Merlin, handing him a pouch of what were probably ground herbs, “And the Queen is quite scary when she wants to be. So if I were you, sire, I'd simply give in and not try not to get killed.”

“I had planned nothing else,” Arthur laughed, stepping back from his wife and swinging himself up into the saddle of his stallion, “Either way, I'll leaving the castle in capable hands.”

For some reason the words left a bitter taste in his mouth.

 

**~o0o~**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to the legend Lancelot was raised by the Lady in the Lake and of course that doesn’t quite match with BBC Merlin where only Morgana’s Lancelot drone is shown to rise out of the water. Didn’t quite work for me because I always wanted him back.  
> As for the insane Gwaine family theory: In the Arthurian legend basically everyone is related to everyone, and every source says something different. Gwaine does have half-brothers named Gareth and Gaheris, his sister is made up, but sometimes he is reported to be Mordred's brother. Really. I drew up a pedigree for my version because it was getting so whacky.  
> But there are still more dirty secrets to be revealed in the next chapter. So be prepared. :)


End file.
